Declan O'Rourke Arrivals

Arrivals features O’Rourke’s first new material in two years and brings us the most emotionally raw and affecting album of his career. Produced by Paul Weller at Black Barn Studios, Surrey, the sound is stripped back to Declan’s soulful and resonant voice, the virtuosic acoustic guitar playing for which he’s renowned and only the occasional sparse arrangement of strings and late-night drums bringing colour and light to the LP’s 10 songs. Weller, a fan of Declan’s song writing for some years, also adds his multi-instrumental abilities, including a beautiful piano accompaniment, to the closing track.

 “Compassion, romance, a sense of mortality and a sense of history run through the songs of Declan O’Rourke. The gravity of the deliberation in their melodies, their calmly sustained phrases, their fatalistic undertone — informs his songs, whether they’re about faithful love or reckoning with elemental forces. — His calling is a balladeer, proffering re-assurance in the face of inevitable sorrow.” Jon Pareles, The New York Times