The latest CD release reviewed

MARY McPARTLAN Petticoat Loose ****

With startling brio, Mary McPartlan returns to the fray with a bristling, blistering successor to her solo debut, 2004's The Holland Handkerchief.

Bathed in a sense of her Leitrim home place and populated by tales of personal insight (Kiss the Moon) and biography (Sanctuary), McPartlan's earthy, belly-deep voice is the perfect foil for the slow-build grim reaper of a tale that is Barbara Allen.

Her collaborations with another Leitrim native, poet Vincent Woods, have resulted in a complex tapestry of lives lived ordinary and well.

A surprise cover of Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercysomehow fits perfectly, transformed by McPartlan's no-nonsense delivery and Seamie O'Dowd's arrangements into a wonderfully shadowy, baroque set piece.

A snapshot in time, whispering of a creative surge in full flow. www.marymcpartlan.com - SIOBHÁN LONG

Download tracks: Kiss the Moon, Wild Mountainside