James Vincent McMorrow ★★★★
Mark Sloan
Wide Open, Horses
NETTWERK. CD/DL/LP
Seventh folk-rock album from deceptively successful Irish singer-songwriter.
A Number 1 artist in his homeland, collaborating with Drake, soundtrack contributions to Game Of Thrones, one billion-plus streams… safe to say much of James Vincent McMorrow’s career has exceeded expectations since his exquisitely tentative debut album Early In The Morning in 2010. It’s testament to his current pulling power that McMorrow booked Dublin’s 1,200-capacity National Concert Hall for two nights to road test the songs on Wide Open, Horses a year before releasing the album. And the love is fully justified. From the existential angst of opener Never Gone (“Cuz what the fuck are any of us really doing here? Do we even exist at all?”) to the scuzzrock bombast of Darkest Days Of Winter and Meet Me In The Garden’s folktronica, McMorrow covers similar ground to before – albeit with slightly more swearing – fighting meaninglessness and attempting to order the chaos of life.