Traditional

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ALLISON BARBER Traveling Home Yonas Media ***

The trouble with traditional music is that some artists use it as a licence to wring old standards dry without adding anything new to the canon. Allison Barber is an Irish American singer-songwriter with echoes of Susan McKeown in her vocals. Her debut is a pedestrian trawl through a handful of songs that have received far more interesting treatment by many other artists, and a selection of original (and promising) compositions. Barber's insipid tackling of The Parting Glass is unfortunate, given The Voice Squad's sublime nailing of this classic many years ago. With some robust accompaniment, particularly from Darren Maloney on banjo, Barber could have traced a more refreshing route, but her debut does little to set her apart from the hordes who yearn to stand in the spotlight alongside her. www.myspace.com/allisonbarber SIOBHÁN LONG

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