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With sometimes little to differentiate between po-faced mirror, signal, manoeuvre predictability and visceral candour, to be a male of the singer-songwriter species often invites indifferent speculation, unless of course your craft is voiced with broadsheet inflection. As a result, separating that which is mawkish from that which is honest, can pose something of a dichotomy, one currently surrounding the credentials of Duke Special’s third and perhaps most straightforward album, six months after being first released in his native Ireland.
The multi-platinum acclaim heaped on 2006’s ‘Songs From The Deep Forest’ led to Duke Special being bracketed as oddball pop, mainstream folk, hobo-chic and more recently the Duke himself, rather spuriously, as “The Irish Meatloaf”. Its successor, ‘I Never Thought This Day Would Come’, although imbued with the same level of romantic grandeur, isn’t as overtly multifaceted, but nor does it pretend to be. Part the result of writing collaborations with Daniel Benjamin, Paul Pilot, Phil Wilkinson and Bernard Butler, its selective unguarded sincerity and simplistic accessibility is more than enough to ensure universal appeal, in equal measure, of course, with two-a-penny suspicion.
With more authentic statement than Q&A dovetailing and without need for sympathetic gimmickry, ‘I Never Thought This Day Would Come’ is lyrically sparing in places and reliant on chorus in others but not all of the overbearing kind. This doesn’t mean that the likes of ‘Mockingbird Wish Me Luck’, ‘Sweet, Sweet Kisses’ and ‘Diggin An Early Grave’ are in any way lacking, but effectively made all the more pertinent through traditional textured structure and comfortable Irish lilt that evades geographical placement.
Combine this with the fantastic carousel swirl that the RTE Symphony Orchestra lend to the title track, ‘Why Does Anybody Love?’, ‘Flesh And Blood Dance’, ‘Let Me Go (Please, Please, Please)’ and ‘Nothin You Could Do Can Bring Me Round’ and any assumed sentimentality is almost rendered irrelevant through the glorious embrace of simple message, vaudeville predilection and through ‘By The Skin Of My Teeth’ and ‘Nothing Comes Easy’ more everyday twist than bittersweet sting.
The highs, lows and pin drop silences that Duke Special brandishes can be classed as many things; oddball pop, mainstream folk and hobo-chic all accurately synonymic of a timeless storyteller, but one thing is for certain, Duke Special is most definitely not “The Irish Meatloaf”.
