Declan O'Rourke - Arrivals (Album Review)

Declan O’Rourke’s new record, Arrivals, is an exercise in less-is-more.  For his seventh LP (and his first for eastwest), the celebrated Irish 44-year-old has Paul Weller in the production chair and though the songs are stripped to their bones, they want not for richness or depth.  

The brief opener ‘In Painters Light’ – a wistful confession of an unfulfilled dream of becoming an artist – sets the tone as O’Rourke’s crisp, deft acoustic guitar is set against his resonant baritone, with no other dressing required.  The regret in the line “and you know yourself, my friends, what life can do with plans” is allowed to linger, resonating with the faded hopes of each of us.  The glistening 12-string guitar of ‘The Harbour’ that follows, delivers more poignant lyrical moments: “when you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail” so you barely notice the organ and weepery of strings creeping in and excuse the yodelling.

‘The Stars Over Kinvara’ is a forty-something’s wet-eyed and thankful look back at a life-so-far.  It’s an exquisite and unashamedly sentimental ballad in which O’Rourke’s guitar remains central in spite of the thickly laid strings.  It’s a slightly incongruous precursor to the ambitious, six-minute epic ‘Olympian’, which tells the remarkable and inspiring story of Yusra Mardini, who, aged seventeen, fled Syria in an overloaded dinghy.  When the boat’s motor failed, Yusra and her sister got into the sea and swam, dragging the vessel for three hours, no doubt saving the lives of their fellow passengers.  Just one year later, Mardini was competing as a swimmer in the Rio Olympics. 

Title track ‘Arrivals’ sees O’Rourke at his most fragile and emotional, musing on family and homecoming and the idea that distance, both temporal and physical, cannot dilute the bonds of our most precious relationships.  The Heaneyeqsue lyric weaves in and out of a Joni Mitchell-inspired piano and cello accompaniment and O’Rourke’s vocal is irresistibly close and clear.  If this doesn’t move you, check your feet haven’t been glued to the floor. 

Declan O’Rourke by Lawrence Watson

If you need to pull yourself together after all of that, ‘Andy Sells Coke’ is a tongue-in-cheek but sobering reminder that partying hard and mid-life don’t mix.  At this point, the introduction of drums and bass guitar feels both necessary and intrusive, and this is perhaps the reason why the second half of Arrivals doesn’t hang together as well as the first.  The come-down from ‘Andy…’ is abrupt, taking the form of the stark, Billy Braggish ‘Have You Not Heard The War Is Over’ and the overlong ‘Convict Ways’.  ‘Zeus and Apollo’ is more engaging, as it imagines a conversation between the Greek god and his son, and is delivered with a wry, Mark Knopfler twinkle.  The record closes with the smoky, midnight jazz of ‘This Thing That We Share’, replete with saxophone, gently skittering drums and Paul Weller giving textbook tinkle at the piano. 

“The more noise you add, the more you struggle to hear the space around you,” O’Rourke says, of the minimal approach he’s taken on Arrivals.  It certainly takes things back to open-mic basics and brings with it much of the intimacy and engagement of that setting, a glimpse of the doubtless magic of his live performance.  As an album, it’s not without its imperfections but you’ll struggle to get much closer to a songwriter and his art than this.  As a collection of heartfelt and beautifully drawn tales, Arrivals cements O’Rourke’s reputation as one of the finest folk songwriters of his generation.

Review by Rich Barnard

Declan O’Rourke - Arrivals is released on April 9th, 2021