Album reviews: U2 | Pictish Trail | Jessie Ware

U2: Easter Lily EP (Island) ★★★

Pictish Trail: Life Slime (Fire Records/Lost Map) ★★★

Jessie Ware: Superbloom (EMI) ★★★★

Another month, another surprise release from U2. The Easter Lily EP was dropped without fanfare on Good Friday, forming a Lent season bookend with February’s equally unexpected Days of Ash. Quoth Bono: “This is between you and us”, two contrasting themed EPs produced en route to their next album and accompanied by another online edition of their Propaganda magazine.

Easter Lily is titled in reference and deference to Patti Smith’s album Easter, but is awash with seasonal themes of faith, hope and love. While Days of Ash was fuelled by the anger of grief, this lighter collection offers gentle support across six songs of “friendship, faith, endurance and renewal”.

Song for Hal is the band’s tribute to US record producer (and friend) Hal Willner, six years after his death from Covid-related complications. Its light summer touch is suffused with melancholy. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr is on notice, hanging fire; this is the Edge’s moment, featuring a rare lead vocal by the guitarist who hails “Hal the magician” as a writer of “stupid songs you can’t forget, beyond pretty, beyond beautiful”.

READ MORE: Kyle Falconer, Glasgow review: ‘strong pop vocals ringing out’

In a Life is a bittersweet reflection on the band members’ friendship, soundtracked by choppy and chiming guitar. Next it’s Adam Clayton’s turn to shine with the deep brooding bassline on Scars over which Bono croons “don’t cover your scars”, deploying a catalogue of imagery related to Christ’s crucifixion – nails, vinegar, wounded hands and side – before moving from the pain of death to the afterlife on Resurrection Song.

This soundscape of hypnotic synths, delicate reverberating guitar and the precise patter of tom drums is followed by Easter Parade, the most naturally uplifting song of the set, with lyrics of renewal and replenishment set to an engaging melody, funky bassline and fuzzy electro throb.

Closing track COEXIST (I Will Bless the Lord At All Times?) is as much the work of Brian Eno with Bono whispering huskily over his beatific wash of sound then declaiming the Biblical title through autotuned effects. This is truly a song of sorrow and succour, grieving for the children of war and calling for religious unity right up to the a capella finish.

Pictish Trail

Autotune also features heavily on the new Pictish Trail album Life Slime, providing a slight disguise for Johnny Lynch to express vulnerable sentiments around a break-up over a monastic soundtrack of Casio keyboard, acoustic guitar, bass and drum machine. Lynch inches towards acceptance on the likes of lo-fi indie electro meditation Hold It, the indie tuneage of the title track and the eight-minute dawning of realisation that is Another Way.

Infinity Ooze offers a more positive image of the slime of life before Lynch succumbs to the mournful balladry of Torch Song, reminiscent of the plaintiveness of his erstwhile labelmate King Creosote, with some grounding guitar.

Jessie Ware (Picture: Jack Range)

In contrast, spring is bustin’ out all over for Britsoul diva Jessie Ware, who sounds absolutely in her element on her sumptuous sixth album Superbloom, replete with silky disco and spiritual soul. In her own words, “I could get used to this”.

The title track is pure gospel soul rapture culminating in Ware hitting ecstatic Minnie Riperton-esque vocal heights. Automatic is classy cocktail hour with jazz woodwind and tremulous strings, while Mr Valentine is a breathy, impish call-and-response dance with her disco sisters over a wiggly bassline.

She steps briefly off the dancefloor to deliver the sepia-tinged maternal ballad 16 Summers before revving up for a closing pirouette to the pure Seventies Euro disco of Don’t You Know Who I Am.

On this elegant and exuberant form, Ware would be ushered straight past the red rope and into the inner sanctum of Studio 54.

CLASSICAL

Handel: Messiah (Linn) ★★★★

Dublin played a key role in restoring Handel’s health and fortune, giving him temporary respite from the stormy operatic politics of 18th-century London. It was there he introduced his oratorio Messiah to a 1742 audience in the Irish city’s tiny New Musick Hall, a venue so packed the organisers advised that women’s skirt hoops and men’s swords be left at home. It remains a perennial favourite in Dublin, where Peter Whelan’s Irish Baroque Orchestra and Choir have become especial proponents of Messiah’s fashionable period instrument presentation. In this no-nonsense recording, featuring only 13 singers from which the soloists emerge, Whelan whisks us through the narrative with nimble, cut-glass precision. But while there is clarity and energy, there is also tenderness, eloquence and theatre, tempered according to sound stylistic practice. Unexpected aria versions may take you by surprise. Among the soloists, soprano Hilary Cronin is especially noteworthy. Ken Walton

READ MORE: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ní Bhriain and Juanjo Corbalán Quartet, Edinburgh review: 'exuberant fusion'

FOLK

Pàdruig Morrison: Buin (Belong) (Own label) ★★★★

Accordionist with the band Bein Lee, Pàdruig Morrison is also a composer fusing contemporary with traditional, not to mention crofting in his native Uist. His debut is an eloquent testament to his commitment to Gaelic language, culture and place. Opening tunes Ionndrain & Tilleadh – Longing and Returning – set the tone with wistful accordion strains joined by Micheal Steele’s flute and pianist Rory Matheson before giving way to an optimistic march. There’s delicately poised singing from Mischa MacPherson in An t-Ionnsachadh, while the ensemble, also including fiddler Catriona Price, give brisk treatment to a trio of reels. Alasdair MacIlleBhàin takes the vocals in the tellingly titled The Place to Which We Belong. Among these lyrical traditional-style compositions, a striking departure is Fàs Ùr – New Growth, its spare piano notes and fiddle sighs replete with yearning as the air unfolds. Apparently another album, highlighting Morrison’s “contemporary classical” compositions, is planned. Jim Gilchrist

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