Poor Creature – ‘All Smiles Tonight’ album review: Irish fairy folksiness with an unsettling edge
THE SKINNY: My great-grandfather hailed from the tiny town of Clones in County Monaghan, Ireland. To my utter eternal shame, I have never yet been able to visit, but there’s some magic in my ancestral Irish blood that awakens whenever I hear the accented lilt of the country’s folkish tones, bringing me sonically closer to a place where I know my heart truly lies. A similar sentiment can be echoed by millions around the world, and so no matter where you are now, this is exactly what Poor Creature cultivate in their debut album All Smiles Tonight.
For band members Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada, and John Dermody, none are strangers to capturing that imagination of traditional Irish music – all hail from other musical outfits within the genre and have built careers around those audiences, but coming together for the first time as a trio, there is something truly ethereal in which they can embody the music’s historical spirit while also keeping it relevant to the present day.
In this sense, the album does feel like a sonic continuation of the canon into the 2020s and beyond, paying homage to the musical efforts of Irish stars of yesteryear, from The Dubliners to Mary Black to Sinéad O’Connor and beyond. This is not simply just a tribute to those artists, though. Poor Creature are unmistakably creating their own imprint, giving them as steadfast a place in the canon as any of those who may have come before them.
From a listener’s perspective, the eight tracks of All Smiles Tonight act as a mystical traverse through ethereal soundscapes – some comforting, others disconcerting, but all combine to lay a lullaby of folkish muses on the table. For anyone looking to reconnect with their Irish roots, this is an album which is all at once introspective, futuristic, and utterly beguiling; just enough to cast you into its spell.
For fans of: Finding emblems of the past in the present – and folkish ethereality.
A concluding comment from my Irish friend: “Éirinn go Brách.”
All Smiles Tonight track by track:
Release date: July 11th | Producer: John ‘Spud’ Murphy | Label: River Lea
‘Adieu Lovely Eireann’: Beginning the album with a goodbye, a brooding bassline gives way to a beautifully delicate and whimsical vocal from Clinton, wishing the figure of Eireann a fond farewell with a powerful incantation, and setting up the premise of modern and historical Irish tradition perfectly. [4.5/5]
‘Bury Me Not’: A slightly more mournful, melancholic tone is adopted here, hitting all the hallmarks of a classic folk song. A largely repetitive pace could do with building to a greater crescendo. [3/5]
‘The Whole Town Knows’: Modern stylistics of an electronic beat course through this song, accompanied by melodic paired harmonies. It’s a combination that typically shouldn’t work, but is far more palatable than you may imagine. A true baptism of fire, but that actually works. [3.5/5]
‘Loreen’: An epistolary ode to those loved and lost, this song channels the heartbreak of folk in its most perfectly imperfect form. It’s not necessarily neatly packaged or without blemishes, but neither is grief, and as such is a powerful testament to it [5/5]
‘An Draighneán Donn’: A cover of one of the oldest traditional folk songs in Irish history, Poor Creature give the well-known ode a twist by the addition of their own haunting instrumentation, complete with theramins and an ethereal vocal. Blasting into full force with a sound not dissimilar to a church choir, it’ll send shivers down your spine. [4/5]
‘All Smiles Tonight’: The album’s eponymous track represents the calling card of the entire record – not exactly groundbreaking compared to what has come before, but rich and harmonious and comforting all the same. [3.5/5]
‘Hick’s Farewell’: Themes of loss continuously permeate through the album, constantly returning to the motif of wishing people well on their next journey, whether in life or in death. To this end, without wishing to lean into a stereotype too much, this would not be out of place in any sort of Irish historical drama which is next to grace the screens. [4/5]
‘Willie O’: Rounding out the record with a parting gift in every sense of the word, this song lasts almost ten minutes in length, but remains as beguiling through every second. With a sound not unlike ‘The Parting Glass’ in its first half, it wraps you up in its arms before delving into much more unsettling sonics, taking you on a journey that you almost don’t want to be a part of, yet can’t turn your head away from. [4.5/5]
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