Maybe it’s the fourth album that’s the difficult one, judging by the 42-year gap since Tír Na NÓg’s third. But the return of progressive Irish folk duo Leo O’Kelly and Sonny Condell is most welcome, both as a celebration of their historical contribution and, more pertinently, the fact that the zeitgeist has come back around to their way of musical thinking.
For newbies, Tír na nÓg released a trio of well-received, if hardly chartbusting, LPs between 1971 and ’73, and moved in rock circles with support slots for Tull and ELP. Their name, derived from Gaelic mythology, means ‘land of eternal youth’, and there is more than a hint of timeless elegance about their studio return. The Dark Dance is an acoustically mounted piece of great refinement, on a record often embellished by strings and moments of Eastern promise. Opener You In Yellow has the delicate literacy of Al Stewart, and more than once there is an echo of Zeppelin at their most unplugged. It’s a pleasingly unhurried album that keeps revealing more detail like a fine painting. After all, last year’s four-track EP notwithstanding, their recording career’s been on hold since the Heath administration, so why hurry?
