It has been a long wait for this Irish band’s second album — six-and-a-half years to be precise. It’s probably not the case that the two pairs of brothers (Quinn and Farrow) who form the line-up spent all that time working on their new full-length. Just figuring out how to live probably occupied a fair share of that time. Yet the new album, Abhainn, is one of those that’s unmistakably the result of tremendous care and craft, not the kind of thing that was ever hurried.

Corr Mhóna‘s continuing devotion to their homeland is also manifest in the new record. Abhainn means “river” in the Irish language, and it is indeed a concept album about water, and specifically the rivers of Ireland (each track is named for an Irish river). We’re told that “themes from the folklore and mythology attached to each river can be seen in the lyrics”, and that “the musical course of the album also follows that of a river — from the initial trickling spring, to the river growing in speed and weight as the body of water grows, to the final torrent that flows to the sea in peace”. Continue reading »