Blues review by SIOBHÁN LONG

GAVIN RYAN

Love and Punishment

RMG ****

All the stock ingredients are here: two-bit losers, intractable blindness, errant hookers and a Waitsean pursuit of life's dark, enthralling underbelly. But Gavin Ryan's blues is born and bred in Dublin, drenched in a bass growl that's (strangely) two parts Richard Thompson, one part Nick Cave. On Ryan's second CD, moods shift uncomfortably in their lizard-skin shoes. A quiet charisma radiates from the bare-boned A Beautiful Girland the urban decay of Midnight Blues. His cavernous voice may still have some miles to go to make it truly his own, but with Brian Connor on co-production, this is a marvellously focused collection. www.gavinryan.com

Download tracks: G-Jam Blues, A Beautiful Girl