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The title track "Looking up falling down" is the first stumbling block for the album. Whether electric or unplugged, both versions are on the CD, it offers little more that competant guitar and easy to listen to vocals. Don't mistake me in thinking that Donald Buick is a bad performer, the album is well performed and produced with accomplished backing from a number of artists on many instruments, most notably Norma Hill on backing vocals and banjo. It's the songs themselves that let the album down - being mostly bland, wishy washy numbers. The best example on the album of what Buick can achieve is "532 La Guardia Place," an enjoyable little tune but unfortunately it's still lacking that magic touch. Though this album should be avoided, look out for Donald Buick in the future as he exudes ability, to produce some good work.
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The debut album from Plunkitt 'Promise Me Kill me' was released in 2000 and since then the husband and wife team have kept a low profile. Now however, they are recording again and have recently released '14 days', their second offering of traditional Folk-Rock.
Though, in terms of music, there is a very strong and obviously folkie influence, regretfully the vocals tend to lean more towards the light rock sound and this seams to bring a greater rock feel to the album. Having said that, it is impossible to find fault with the quality of vocal or musical abillity on display with moments of folk brilliance from Ian on guitar and wonderful little interludes of piano from Lara.
Songs of note on the album are '21st century', though only really for the guitar part as the vocals failed to deliver what I expected, and 'Sun shines', by far the pick of the bunch this song has an almost Nick Drake-esque quality to the sound.
Though this album delivers on many counts I am afraid to say that it will not be appearing on my album list as I found the rock elements off-putting, not my thing, but none the less an accomplished and well thought through album.
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'House Jigs' opens the album, it's a jaunty, optimistic sounding tune which showcases Coyne and Drever's talents not only as individual musicians doing what they do best - but also as a combined force to be reckoned with. It's banjo ace Eamonn Coyne being a banjo ace and Orcadian multi-instrumentalist Kris Drever being an Orcadian multi-instrumentalist (though the Orcadian bit would apply regardless). The album treds similair ground for the first few tracks, good old toe tappping stuff, but nothing much in the way of 'songs' to get your teeth into just yet. But - never fear, whilst the album is packed full of 'tunes', there are a couple of songs. Kris Drever, (winner of BBC Radio 2's Horizon Award) sings on such songs as 'Viking's Bride' & 'Walking In The Dew'. Following on in a similair vain from the songs on 'BlackWater', Drever's debut album - they're very much laments. This reviewer would like to hear some more upbeat songs from Kris at some point, though only out of curiosity as personally I do prefer the sorts of songs he's chosen to sing. The album ends with the title track, or not - as the case may be. 'Honk Toot Sweet' - that's 'sweet' not 'suite' (I know), which seems to have crossed paths with a track called 'Honk Toot' which featured on Kris's solo album. The two tracks are by no means the same, though they are clearly different approaches to the same tune. 'Honk Toot' being much more inkeeping with the feel of Kris' solo album, 'Honk Toot Sweet' is a rip roaring finalé packed full of energy. It's one of those rare albums where good musicians who are passionate about what they're doing get together as friends and create something really unique. It's not the first time we've heard from either Eamonn Coyne or Kris Drever and if there's one thing you can be absolutely sure about - it won't be the last, two folk legends in the making.
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