By Monk
Despite her extremely Celtic name, Rioghan Darcy, to give her her full given name, actually hails from Finland. She first came to our attention last year, just as the world started to emerge from the rigours of the pandemic, with her illustrative and self-reckoning debut EP. Now, some 18 months later, she is back in our face with this declarative and uncompromising full-length offering.
Defined by ten songs with single word titles, such as ‘Promises’, ‘Breath’, ‘Bruises’ and ‘Reflection’, each of which succinctly present their messages, ‘Different Kinds…’ is a diverse and vibrant opus, drawing on metalcore and electro-dance as much as does power pop and new age gothicism, in the process touching on bases which evoke memories of Björk as much as they do Patti Smyth, Anastascia, Annie Lennox and Lauren Tate, yet giving that all-important sense of cohesive cogency.
Defiant in its sense of impassioned liberation, this is an empowering and evocative album, challenging you listen and rewarding you for doing so. By turns, it punches you in both the face and the stomach and them caresses the hairs on the back of your neck, drawing you into a false sense of security for what is lurking, menacingly but pleasingly, around the next twisting alleyway around which this aural journey takes you.
The album is also accompanied by a series of extremely powerful, often disturbing, videos which really ram home the messages contained in Rioghan’s poetic lyrics, which themselves speak from the both the darkest and lightest corners of the soul, appealing and rejecting in equal amounts, as we both accept and reject the recessive messages they contain. The result is a confrontational and divisive album which just cries out to be heard but not necessarily accepted. I have heard it, and I accept it. Thank you.
- ‘Different Kinds Of Losses’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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