The Kilfenora Céilí Band: Now Is the Hour | Album Review

The precision tooling that propels céilí dancing is an art that not all can master, but The Kilfenora Céilí Band have excelled in its intricacies with ease over the past century.

Their latest collection navigates a curious path: from a conventional reel set, Don't Hold Back, replete with straightjacket percussion, to songs that sit uncomfortably alongside the dance music.

At times, too, the songs succumb to the military precision of that same percussive force, so that Andy Irvine's My Heart's Tonight in Ireland morphs from a fluid pastoral to a routine series of geographical name-checks.

Expansive arrangements include cello, double bass and bouzouki, but the Kilfenora’s musical palette doesn’t serve so much to enrich the dance music as to confuse it.

A case of lost in translation from dance floor to recording studio?

[ kilfenoraceiliband.com ]