Sometimes you hear an album and it takes you to another place even though today and that very place are separated by decades of noise, and even though the mountains and valleys look very different and are separated by miles. Separate continents divided by oceans. When you listen to California Irish’ s debut ‘The Mountains are my friends’ you can’t help but feel the decades wash away and find yourself back in the 60’s or early 70’s in that certain stretch of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Hollywood Hills that produced such beautiful Folk and Soft Rock sounds.
Exposed to the sounds of Laurel Canyon as a kid; when I used to visit Los Angeles many years later, I’d always stop off there on the way out to Woodland Hills and Calabasas before driving through Malibu Canyon Road and down to Malibu and Zuma to a soundtrack made up of artists who lived in the Canyon and Lookout Mountain. This record evokes those times and was created with the band playing in the same room, cut on 16 track tape and played with contemporary instruments. It’s a record that is sonically rich, wonderfully produced and lovingly crafted. It’s also remarkably fresh and without a hint of pastiche.
In short this album is remarkable.
With Cormac Neeson’s Rock and Roll pedigree with The Answer it’s always interesting when he explores new sonic territory like on his solo record ‘White Feather’ which to me is a wonderful counterpoint to the new California Irish release. Both albums explore lighter fare than The Answer but both take different routes and draw in different influences. Whereas ‘White Feather’ was more swampy and Bluesy, the California Irish record sees him surrounded by some wonderfully talented bandmates who with him, weave some wonderful tapestries from the most articulate melodies.
This is a mellower record than you might expect, but it has a huge heart.
Opening with one of the more celebratory numbers, swelling with Hammond and with a swing in the beat, there’s a wonderful familiarity and immediacy that feels like a night with an old friend bar hopping and deciding to stay as the band strikes up. That is this song.
Keeping that thought, and knowing that this album was recorded almost live with the band in the same room (check out our interview with Cormac this week) there’s a wonder to ‘Old Friends’ and a gentling lilting aspect that soothes the soul. This is the music that was wrought in that green oasis of Laurel Canyon over five decades ago and it’s the spirit that is brought to life here again. You can so easily fall in love with songs like this.
I simply love ‘Julie Ann’ the song that lowers you gently into a world where a young Joni Mitchell is still walking those hills. It’s ‘Americana’ you could say, it references CSN of course, but there’s something timeless about it that is far less self-conscious than you might expect. It’s all the more powerful for the fact that you feel it’s very existence is far more organic than many who have had that tag bestowed upon them over the years.
‘Side by Side’ is almost it’s equal, a gentle contemplation on love that is timeless and beautiful, with I think, Cormac’s best vocal and dripping with that wonderful truth: “the deepest connections are always the hardest to hold.” Following on ‘Something Different’ is simply sublime with melodies that you just don’t hear anymore. It’s structure and communal feel are something that we never should have left behind. It’s a real highlight.
‘Big Questions’ that follows is wonderfully warm and satisfying, awash with melodies: it’s incredible when you realise that the sheer quality shot through this album is running through the veins of every single track here. ‘Can’t Let Go’ featuring a wonderful duet with Suzy Coyle is sublime, and gently builds as the sun rises to become a thing of beauty.
Conversely ‘Sunday Morning’ is all about the guitar and how you can build a song with that wonderful instrument. Intricate and beautifully woven, it’s wonderfully fluid, casually adorned and paints a wonderfully summary with the wail that underlines the melody. It’s one of my highlights amongst stiff competition.
‘Hard We Fall’ is another of my favourite vocals which move the song along lifted by the smooth backing vocals, harp and ‘dusty road’ guitars before bursting then drifting back. It’s one I keep coming back to. And it all comes to a wonderful conclusion with ‘I Am Free’ the closer which opens up to those wide open spaces of the West, and has a touch of Tom Petty and Mark Knight about it. It’s another dimension to the sound, more agitated, more wide-eyed and maybe the perfect way to close and album, sounding as it does just like an unfinished story.
This isn’t just the best album you will hear all year, it’s one that makes you realise that despite the state the music industry is in at the moment, despite the streaming, despite the AI generated garbage, the autotune and synthesized soulless noise, there is real music out there. Real music that can transcend the vicissitudes of everyday life, that makes you realise you can live forever in that moment. This is the album that reminded me that real music is timeless, fleeting, ethereal, beautiful, fragile, organic, and bursting with promise. It’s an album that makes you realise that this world can be a better place, a warmer place, a greater place and these days we need that more than ever.
10/10