All we have become - Niall Connolly

I could begin by telling you that this album is beautifully tied together by one song - no - one line in a song: "When does money lie awake and worry about you and me?" ('Stolen with permission from Neil McCarthy')
But I would be lying about that. 
Like any fan of Niall Connolly - the man and his music - I am just delighted that we now get to listen to this his eighth studio album, currently accompanying him on a  tour so long that surely it was fruitless trying to design one poster with all the dates on it. (details of which can be found by clicking here..... or for the hell of it, here)  
'all we have become' sees Connolly picking up exactly where he left off with 'Sound '(2013): a man at ease with his craft, his lyrics, his audience, his uncanny knack of turning a group of songs into a 40 minute or so journey through the sublime, the heartfelt, the intimate, the poetic, the dirty and the uplifting. In opening with the gentle and stirring 'Down to the sea', from which the album title is taken, we get a feeling for Connolly's peers and diaspora; perhaps the nostalgia that follows into the second track 'The Four Face Liar' which, in keeping with its subject, has a distinctively 90's pop-rock feel to it which works perfectly. 'The Blue Dollar' put me in a Ford Capri in the 70's riding through the Mojave Desert - again, this is a good thing: I want a song to take me somewhere else, and that is exactly how this album works. From the raucously infectious 'Not my monkey' to the beautifully arranged 'Carry it with you', this is an album that you will want to carry with you, and you will be glad you did, I'm not lying about that.  Available now from Niall's guitar case, itunes, and CD Baby. 

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