| · The so called swan song from Sinead O’Connor, comprised of B-sides and live tracks, is better than most artist’s studio efforts.
It has been suggested that this will be Sinead O’Connor’s last album – a suggestion that’s supported by the obliquely full-circle title. It’s the (modified) first line of Psalm 91 (it’s a little known fact that her first album’s title, The Lion and The Cobra, is also a line from Psalm 91), which adds interesting highlights to O’Connor’s often stormy ambivalence about religion and the Catholic Church.
O’Connor’s career has been wildly up and down, as have her albums, but at her best she has always been a unique musical force. It’ll be a shame if this is her last, but the two-disc set captures O’Connor’s sometimes-brilliance to perfection, which would make it a fitting cap to an unpredictable career.
Consisting of one CD of B-sides and a second live CD, She Who Dwells… fully covers O’Connor’s musical map. The studio B-sides include her collaborations with the Asian Dub Foundation, Massive Attach and Roger Eno, and range in mood from a cappella Gregorian hymns to Motown to Irish traditional to alt-rock reminiscent of The Lion and The Cobra, without a sour or flabby note to be found.
The lack of theme actually benifits the album, adding tension, unpredictability and a gorgeous flexibility that more than balances out the wild genre swings. O’Connor’s voice is always front-and-centre, with its remarkable ability to range from windy sweetness to strident.
The greatest gem, however, is the live CD. From the first hair-raising notes of "Molly Malone," O’Connor’s fans will be reminded why they loved her in the first place. Ably backed by a solid and understated Irish band that’s equally at home with lo-fi buzz and pennywhistles, O’Connor sings with all the passion she has always demonstrated, and a good deal of finesse besides. It’s possible for her voice and thematic tendencies to be a bit over the top, but She Who Dwells… is uniformly focussed and disciplined – at no point does the two-disc set feel like filler, and it rewards repeated listens with its subtlety and layers of meaning. Overall, the album speaks of strength and grace, and if this is O’Connor’s retreat from the ring, she does so with her head bloodied but unbowed.
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