An opening line like “Hold your horses, hold your tongue/Hang the rich but spare the young” is one to savour, and Dubliner Lisa Hannigan maintains an impressive lyrical standard throughout this third solo album. As titles like Prayer for the Dying and Funeral Suit suggest, the mood is often sombre, but well conjured by her double-tracked vocals. Lo is a restless drift through insomnia, Snow a hushed evocation of love (“You were the snow, I was the city”), and there’s an inspired, a cappella version of Seamus Heaney’s poem Anahorish. Producer Aaron Dessner, of the National, takes few risks and overplays the solemn piano chords, but Hannigan’s soaring vocals never falter.
