Celtic Thunder Take Me Home CD

Personnel: Neil Byrne (guitars, dobro, mandolin, background vocals); Plunkett McGartland (fiddle); Barry Kerr (flute, whistle, pipes, bodhran); Phil Coulter (keyboards); Conor McCreanor (double bass, bass guitar); Declan O'Donoghue (drums, percussion); The Celtic Concert Orchestra (symphony); Nigel Wheatley (background vocals); Paul Byrom, Ryan Kelly, Keith Harkin, George Donaldson, Damian McGinty.
Arrangers: Michael Keeney; Phil Coulter.
The Celtic show's third album focuses on old pop stand-bys.
The Celtic Thunder road show is a multigenerational extravaganza of Irish-flavored pop music designed to melt hearts. Their third album, culled from their 2009 show, focuses mainly on pop standbys like "Every Breath You Take" and "Wichita Lineman." While the uninitiated may not even suspect that the act is Irish, an emerald glint shines off the folkier numbers like "The Green Fields Of France" and "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)."
The sophomore album from five-piece vocal pop ensemble Celtic Thunder follows in the carefully placed footsteps of its 2007 predecessor with 15 new commercial renderings of traditional Irish and Scottish ballads peppered with a handful of pop/rock covers that hint at a singular vision for adult contemporary domination. For sheer elevator music weirdness, it just doesn't get smoother than Keith R. Harkin lending his Derry brogue to "Wichita Lineman" or Ryan John Kelly adopting Sting's post-Police solo rasp on a version of "Every Breath You Take," but when the quintet comes together in all of its soulless splendor on the chorus of the Proclaimers classic "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," the kitschy trance is lifted, revealing the sad, market-tested truth beneath. ~ James Christopher Monger