My heading (NO-Lihg HO-nuh JEEV) means "You [pl] have a Happy Christmas." - a bit early I know but Enya has a new album And winter came. I'd no't known it was coming but I was in Tesco the other night and saw it and bought it as an early Christmas present for my dad to give me (!thanks dad!). The next night I heard the lady herself on Frontrow (listen again).# There is nothing new here really (though we hear an electric guitar by Pat Farrell on one track, which must be a first or was there one on the Celts album?) but an Enya album is an Enya album and they are obviously all different to some extent. The association with Christmas and snow works well for me. I so liked Amid the snow on the last album. Indeed that whole album was headed in the direction where this one has ended up.
So we start with the title track - similar to other solo piano Enya pieces (Lothlorien, Memory of Trees, etc).* Then comes Journey of the angels, a pleasant modern carol. White is in the winter night (a single) is in the jaunty Enya genre and is a more secular celebration of Christmas with references to mistletoe, holly, skating, snow, children, candlelight, a choir singing glory, etc and the almost obligatory moon and stars.
The fourth track is a hymn often associated with Christmas O come, O come, Immanuel. I've always loved it. Inevitably she breaks into Latin. The whole thing is well done. She finishes with a new version of Silent night in Irish Oíche Chiún using the same choral style.
Track 5, Trains and winter rains (another single) is atmospheric and ends with a nod to the Christ child and the line "And in the sky, the star alone". Dreams are more precious is another modern carol. The secularising tendency is stronger here with its follow your dreams message. Perhaps the strongest track on the album Last time by moonlight is a nostalgic love song mentioning Enya staples - snow and moonlight. Magic! The later Stars and midnight blue is in the same vein but sadder and musically less successful.
One toy soldier is ostensibly a traditional secular Christmas piece, complete with bells (resisitance to their use elsewhere shows great self-restraint). May be there's more going on here as a broken heart manages to cope with the superficial joy of Christmas cheer. The spirit of Christmas past is a simpler call to cheer up as "Tomorrow will be Christmas Day". The penultimate CD track My! My! How time flies is another jaunty piece, perhaps the most interesting lyrically, though how Neil Armstrong and Isaac Newton end up being referenced with Tchaikovski, the Beatles, Elvis and B B King I don't know. I'd thought "a king who's still in the news" was a Christ reference rather than an Elvis one. Apparently it is a tribute to an Irish guitarist called Jimmy Faulkner.
The i-tunes and Japanese editions have a bonus track Miraculum in Latin which uses the One toy soldier melody and appears to reference her previous hit Sail away (Vela).~
So a bit sentimental and safe I guess but great fun.
#Wikipedia says it's been trialed since September! It was released November 7.
*Wikipedia says it's a reworking of Midnight Blue (B side of Wild Child 2001). Knew I'd heard it somewhere. Is Stars and Midnight Blue drawing on the same source?
~Wikipedia says it marks the 20th anniversary of the Watermark album
