Sometimes, you want music that’s delicate yet rugged, intimate and custom-created for dingy bars, and while musicians who aspire to produce songs that provide the right soundtrack to these times and places, only a handful really pull it off. Northern Ireland’s Robyn G Shiels lurks amongst that handful, in a shady corner long after after last orders, and nonchalantly offers up his latest five-track EP, upliftingly titled ‘The Great Depression’.
He begins completely unaccompanied, the first verse of ‘When We Were brothers’ being sung acappella, before restrained, delicate percussion and guitar join in to accompany his world-weary singing. It’s magnificently understated, and sets the tone and standard for the remaining four tracks.
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When he half drawls, half croaks the refrain on ‘Look What You’ve Done’, he doesn’t sound irate, so much as vaguely disappointed, and as though being let down was an inevitability. Yet the song unfurls into a ragged yet somehow majestic sweep of sound that breathes humanity.
‘The Great Depression’ won’t set your heart racing, but it will touch your heart, and while Sheils may not be the most uplifting musical companion, for late-night acoustic melancholia delivered with an affecting sincerity, he’s an absolute master.
Robyn G Shiels on MySpace
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