DAVID KEENAN
What Then? RUBYWORKS
Cinematic second release grabs the baton from promising debut
8/10
Eloquent Irish folkie Keenan’s 2020 longplaying introduction A Beginner’s Guide To Bravery had some flag-wavers heralding the arrival of a “Dundalk Dylan”, such was the mythic, poetical quality of the characters that populated the narratives of his songs. What Then? is a further rogues gallery, from the taproom sage of “Grogans Druid” and the doomed ne’er-do-well in “The Grave Of Johnny Filth”, to the selfmocking “unmade bed of existential crises” in “Peter O’Toole’s Drinking Stories”. It’s all akin to a collision between folk tradition and beat poetry stream-of-consciousness; the sweet spot where Christy Moore breaks bread with Jack Kerouac.