You never know what is going to get trapped in your ears. The conventional, the uninspired and the simply mundane are always there to intrude on the search for something actually interesting but that special something is always out there somewhere. And so it was without expectation or storm warning that my ears were enchanted by “Love & Woe by SaoirseGrainne.
Undoubtedly, there is a notable theatrical element to eleven songs on this album and it would take little in the way of lateral thinking to see this album as a soundtrack to a potential stage play. As the title suggests, the subject matter of these songs varies between light and shade and, with soundbites decorating the presented drama with the splatter of brutality, SaoirseGrainne’s intent is clear. Her world is not one of fluffy bunnies, teenage heartbreak and unrequited love. Her world, or at least the one portrayed herein, is a darker affair where people do not mesh as they should do in storybooks and the monster is as likely to be present as the man and it is clear, therefore, that pain rather than pleasure is providing the motive power to take these songs through to their final destination.
Love & Woe is not an album to bring a smile to anyone’s face but it is an album with artistic validity nonetheless.