Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

Aidan Scannell was born in Dublin and emigrated to Canada after touring that country whilst a member of an Irish pop band. He was ordained into the Canadian Roman Catholic Church at the end of the 1970s and lately he's been very involved in the charity Canadian Food For Children, some of the proceeds of the sale of this album will go towards its work in Third World countries. Eight of the 10 songs here were written by Aidan and his friends (the two odd ones out are "Amazing Grace" and Charlie Landsborough's favourite "My Forever Friend"), two of the friends", Brian Tyrrell and Hugo Straney, take lead vocals on one song each and to be brutally honest, Brian and Hugo have much better voices than Aidan, who sounds like a rather off-key Daniel O'Donnell. The songs themselves are variable in quality, most are rather trite lyrically and unimaginative musically and one of them might be criticised theologically. With all its shortcomings, not least an unacceptably brief playing time of just over 33 minutes, this album is very difficult to recommend.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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