Postcards From Ireland as part of my CW journey

I have listened to Postcards From Ireland about 5 times now (with the first being the moment it released at 11pm Thursday night and staying up way too late on a work night!), so time to put some thoughts here on the forum.  I was trying to think how to write this up and I'm not the greatest at writing up each individual song.  So instead I'm going to talk about how Postcards fits into mine & Gregg's personal Celtic Woman journey.  If this is too long-winded, jump on down to where I label Postcards   

The first time I heard Celtic Woman was in 2007 when visiting Gregg's parents and they had A New Journey saved in their dvr.  Gregg and I liked it a lot and purchased both A New Journey and the original show on cd and dvd (after getting the dvd from Netflix multiple times and never wanting to return it!).  We listened to the music and watched the dvds quite frequently and were enjoying them.  Over the years, we added more of the cds and dvds to our collection and continued to enjoy the music, but we hadn't gone to a live show and weren't really paying any attention to them on social media or to any of the changes in members.  We were just kind of like, they get new members a lot but they always release beautiful music, so terrific we'll keep buying it.

Then came Destiny and the Gavin Murphy era of Celtic Woman.  Right around the time that Destiny was going to release, we heard that there was going to be a Celtic Woman concert very close to where we live.  We thought, let's buy this new album that they're going on tour for and then decide if we want to go see them live for the first time.  I listened to Destiny and was blown away.  I loved it so much and remember thinking, this is Celtic Woman at a whole new level, this blows everything else they've done out of the water!  I told Gregg how much I loved it and said we must get tickets for that concert!  Destiny was our first live show, we loved it immensely, and we left the show saying that we needed to see them again.  Thus began our epic awesome period of nearly 4 years (June 2016 to March 2020) in which I attended 27 concerts (Gregg 26, he still needs to catch my count!), in multiple states, 4 different countries, including being in the audience at Johnstown Castle and being at Red Rocks, both for Ancient Land.

So, Destiny having blown us away and kicking up our fandom to a high level, set the bar for future Celtic Woman releases very high.  Voices of Angels and Homecoming both met the level of Destiny for us as we continued to love the music, love going to the shows and started to meet the performers.  Getting to meet the ladies made going to the shows even more enjoyable than they already were.  The ladies also meant a great deal to me in particular because it was the music on Destiny and Voices of Angels that was helping me get through a particularly challenging and stressful time of my life (work-related).  On one of those stressful days, which was after the Destiny tour and getting close to the release of Voices of Angels, I put in my earbuds while working and turned on Destiny and made the amazing discovery that listening to this music made my stress just melt away.  It was honestly a life changer and I fell even more deeply in love with this Gavin Murphy era of music and also formed an emotional attachment to the performers, my very favorite ladies Mairead C, Tara, Eabha, Susan, and then Megan when she joined the group. 

Many of you know that Gregg and I had booked our trip to Ireland for our ten year wedding anniversary nearly two years in advance and got the most epic surprise of a lifetime when about 6 weeks or so before the trip we found out Ancient Land would be filmed at a castle and all we had to do was change our flight home by two days and we could be in the audience.  It still amazes me to this day the way that timing worked out!  With the already very high bar set by Destiny, Voices of Angels, and Homecoming, we attended the filming of Ancient Land and were once again so incredibly blown away, that the bar moved up even higher than it already was.  We had a blast attending multiple Ancient Land shows and getting to talk to the ladies more and more, which also allowed them to get to know us.  A little over a year after Ancient Land came Magic of Christmas, so fantastically amazing that it met the bar set by Ancient Land.  We continued to have the time of our lives traveling to the phenomenal shows all the way up to a week before covid shut-downs started and the Celebration tour abruptly stopped.

Postcards From Ireland

So now after two years since the last album release and a year and a half since seeing these amazing ladies live, Postcards From Ireland comes out.  We've got the bar set at an extremely high level by everything from the Gavin Murphy era, with Ancient Land and Magic of Christmas at the top.  Does Postcards From Ireland get up to that level?  Honestly, I wish it did, but it comes in below the albums from the Gavin Murphy era, which of course means that it's not within my top 5 favorite Celtic Woman albums.  Now don't get me wrong and think that I dislike it.  I don't dislike this new album.  I think there are quite a few things to enjoy on it and I find nearly every song to be beautiful and good music.  It immediately struck me as feeling like I was back in Ireland, sitting in a pub, listening to live music.  It's definitely a new sound from the new music director and I found it to be quite enjoyable.  I'd say my favorite songs on the album are The Lakes of Pontchartrain (considering this one most has the sound that could fit into Ancient Land or Destiny, no surprise there) and Mise Eire (my goodness, so incredibly gorgeous).  I was bobbing my head dancing along with The Calm of the Day/The Banshee and found that to be a very fun song.  Beeswing is also a lot of fun.  I'm loving Muirgen's gorgeous voice and also loving how much Megan shines.  I haven't yet gotten very into Wild Mountain Thyme or Angel, but maybe those will come around with more listens.  I do think the video for Wild Mountain Thyme is gorgeous.  Gregg and I loved Connemara on our Ireland trip

So I would say that Postcards From Ireland is a good album with quite a few beautiful songs, but it's just not up to the level that Celtic Woman was at from 2016-2020.  There are a few things that stand out in this album as to why it doesn't reach all the way up to the five prior albums.  One is what I've been seeing other fans saying as well, which is that there is a complete lack of harmony on this album.  Harmony is one of the things that Celtic Woman is most well known for.  The harmonies all throughout Gavin Murphy's era blew me away and constantly made my jaw drop, even when I knew they were coming.  It just doesn't sound right to put only a few seconds of harmony into each group number as they did on Postcards.  Another thing is that throughout the group numbers, they're missing the violin segments that used to be a major part of the songs.  Tara is an absolutely amazing performer, she really should be more prominently featured on the group songs.  It's kind of difficult to even notice her on this album other than her solos, both of which I think are fantastic.  I hope they do some re-arranging before the tour starts to add those violin segments back in.  And my third thing is that I'm finding the orchestrations and choir to be too over-powering on this album.

Overall, Postcards From Ireland is a good album, but it could have been better.  It's not my favorite or my least favorite.  It's sitting somewhere in the middle of the pack.  And of course even middle of the pack Celtic Woman is incredible music.  It's maybe unfair to try to compare it to the likes of Ancient Land, Destiny, etc, but it's hard not to compare when I am so completely in love with that particular time period of Celtic Woman music.  Now there's a new music director and a very new sound, but I still love these ladies and I truly cannot wait to get back out traveling and attending their phenomenal concerts.
   

I liked how you explained that the album was good, but it had a tough task in living up to the Gavin Murphy era albums you loved so much.

I also love that you're enjoying it more the more you listen. Me too!

I'm not sure that my own reaction to the album was because of its contrast to Gavin Murphy's sound, because in a lot of ways the new sound is more similar to Gavin Murphy's sound than it was to any of the David Downes era albums. Every album before this has had plenty of songs (group and solo) that I loved. Yes, the harmony was sorely lacking on Postcards and that's terribly unfortunate. But it's the solos that have me even most confused. They sound GOOD and there's no track on the album I disliked, but not a single track is resonating with me as strongly as the songs on any other Celtic Woman album in any era. There's nothing that's jumping out at me and making me think: I absolutely love this track. It's just not getting to the next level for whatever reason.

It's so frustrating wanting to love these songs more but not knowing how. 💔

Agreed, these songs are good, but they are missing the wow factor, the jaw-dropping moments. All the music that I love so much from Destiny through Magic of Christmas, I can feel all the way to my heart and soul. Postcards doesn't give me that feeling, even when I find most of the songs on it to be enjoyable. It's quite a different feeling.

Agreed, these songs are good, but they are missing the wow factor, the jaw-dropping moments. All the music that I love so much from Destiny through Magic of Christmas, I can feel all the way to my heart and soul. Postcards doesn't give me that feeling, even when I find most of the songs on it to be enjoyable. It's quite a different feeling.

Interesting same time as in Disney the same effect has come out from the two new nighttime firework shows at WDW not that they both are run by the same corp.