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Articles and Reviews: MUSIC

I’ll Tear My Own Walls Down by Bill Coleman (BCMR)

Cork lad Bill Coleman is one of the more challenging members of the current standing army of Irish singer/songwriters. In an always overcrowded genre, usually synonymous with anguished, acoustic, bed-sit navel-gazing, he is an edgy cut above the introspective herd. But, then again, as one wag put it, Bono and Thom Yorke are singer/songwriters: they just have loud bands behind them.

The proof’s in the pudding, and this debut album, released on his own BCMR label, is consistently excellent, with no discernable weakest link in the eleven tracks. The reasons for this are manifold: the dexterity of his fierce finger-picking, which will draw inevitable comparisons with Nick Drake and Elliott Smith; the raw tenderness of his voice; and, perhaps most of all, the fact that he really beats himself up in his thoughtful, subtle lyrics, but although dangerously self-lacerating, is never whingingly self-pitying. Instead, having confronted his demons, he offers hard-won hope, through finding inner strength and resilience.