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Album Review: Villagers - Where Have You Been All My Life?

Chris Hayden
StarStarStarStar

"The band is note perfect and O'Brien's voice undeniably affecting."

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More consistent yet less successful than his Irish counterpart Damien Rice, Conor O'Brien's Villagers have long deserved further inspection.

This compilation of sorts captures choice selections from O'Brien's three albums performed live in the studio, somewhat homogenised to suit the more delicate form of last year's Darling Arithmetic. It's a successful approach where tunes from that particular album are concerned (the aching title track in particular stands out) but saps energy unnecessarily from some earlier tracks like That Day. Still, the band is note perfect and O'Brien's voice undeniably affecting, giving these songs a second life they richly deserve.