A Thousand Hearts

Five year's after Cara Dillon's last studio album, 2009's Hill of Thieves, comes A Thousand Hearts, a brittle and beautiful meditation on love, longing and loss that boasts one subtly executed stand-out performance after another. There's both a greater freedom here in the choice of material and a more concentrated sense of what Dillon is about, aspects perfectly framed by crisp, clean production from her husband Sam Lakeman. Catching the ear especially are two covers: a haunting take on Shaun Colvin's ‘Shotgun Down the Avalanche’ and the hushed serenity of ‘River Run’, a hypnotic re-working of Suddenly Tammy!'s pleading 90s indie-pop gem. Dillon's facility for re-minting traditional airs is also on display here in the lilting fragility of ‘Táimse im’ Chodladh’ and the gorgeous album closer ‘As I Roved Out’, on which Dillon's characteristic crystal-cut vocals taking on a becoming burnished husk.

‘Jacket So Blue’ gets things off to a fine authentic-sounding start and ‘Bright Morning Star’ is a captivatingly buoyant concoction underpinned by leavening melancholy. ‘My Donald’ moves from dark-hued introspection towards a redemptive instrumental frenzy, driven by Niall Murphy's vital violin. There's much to enjoy here in artful arrangements and intimately framed production, but it's Dillon's mesmerisingly understated voice that stamps brilliance on it.