Adrian Crowley – Measure of Joy – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Adrian Crowley has carved out a niche for himself in a dark corner of the Irish music scene.  This is his tenth album, and I suspect it will gain attention for the incorporation of bossanova style tempos in several of the songs.  That’s not to say Crowley has gone ‘pop’!  The album comes gradually into view with Lost At Last, a very downbeat keyboard-based ballad, standard Crowley (a good thing).  The title track is the first of the uptempo songs with a ‘groovy beat’ which allows Crowley to croon “you a girl called truth, me a boy from the island” over moody music, with a lovely backing vocal from Nadine Khouri.  The melancholic Tangled is similar, if a little slower, while despite its uptempo arrangement Genevieve of the Mountain is strangely reminiscent of Leonard Cohen.

But if it’s dark and brooding you’re looking for you don’t need to go far, with several songs (Swimming In The Quarry, Deep Dark Blue, The Trembling Cup) fitting that description, Brother Was A Runaway even has a muted, Bill Callahan-style blackness to it.

There is a complete departure for the final two songs. Transmission Lost is like an old 50s-style torch song channelling Jim Reeves’ He’ll Have To Go, Crowley crooning wryly “if you move your lips a little closer to the phone” at a glacially slow pace.  The final track Cherry Blossom Soft Confetti seems to belong on a different album entirely with its uptempo, bright beat and timeless melody.  It’s hard to know if Adrian Crowley is entirely serious with these two songs, and it’s an odd move to put them right at the end of the album!

Overall it’s an album of timeless, rough-hewn songs.  As good an album as he’s ever released, Crowley just seems to get better and better.

Measure of Joy