Fiona Kernaghan – Shadow Wine and Truth Lilies CD Review

Fiona Kernaghan – Shadow Wine and Truth Lilies

In the majority of cases you can usually tell if you are going to like an album from the quality and calibre of the albums opening track. The opening track of an album will both grab you and compel you to listen avidly to the rest of the CD or disinterest you so that the rest of the album passes by in something of a blur. Fiona Kernaghan’s – Shadow Wine and Truth Lilies CD is no exception to this rule.

The opening track of this CD – The World Inside is everything you could dream for and more. The lyrics literally blow your mind away; they are so intense and thought provoking. You soon realise that this is no ordinary album – this is something special on every level, no correct that, this is something fantastic. A lyrical journey though the heart and soul. An intense collection of words strung neatly together with Fiona’s outstanding and passionate vocals. Poetry of the highest quality permeated with dramatic music and a range of haunting vocals.

The World Inside has such a dramatic opening you could easily be watching the lights go up on a dark stage, anticipation and electricity filling the air. The lyrics of this song show that not only does Fiona have a wonderful talent for writing; they tell a story about how the weight of the world drags us down unless we push to do something about it. The albums title also comes from this opening number “they peeled back my skin and then this hatching song flew out, pour the shadow wine and let the truth lilies bloom”. What an interesting lyric this is and this is just one of the mind blowing lyrics contained in this song. This song has everything – a stellar opening, outstanding lyrics and to end the song a big rousing finish. Top class music. As a listener I am left contemplating how the album can possibly get any better than this – this is music at its very best – raw and full of powerful yet strangely dark emotions. I feel I am pawing over a box of chocolates each one so very different and ready to take me on a thrilling journey, a journey that will unlock all of my senses and awaken my mind, heart and soul.

You Can Call Me “Baby” kicks off with one of my favourite lyrics from the whole album – “I cut up lines on my toilet with my credit card”, what an image that creates. Here again in this song the lyrics are powerful, Fiona doesn’t mince her words that is for sure and maybe that is a good thing. Fiona sings about life as it is – no fuss, no glamour. This is anything but a collection of fluffy pop songs with boring politically correct lyrics that mean nothing. Here the lyrics are deep and for that reason they penetrate more than just the surface of the listener. As a listener I felt a lot of angst coming from Fiona during this song. This song feels raw both in sound and lyrical content. These are songs written from the heart; Fiona is giving something of herself to everyone who is fortunate to listen to this album.

Tender Is The Night is a slower and much gentler number. Gone is the harshness of the previous track. This is an absolutely adorable song, so beautiful as a listener I just wanted to cry. The lyrics were so honest, the music soft and with a haunting chorus this is a true classic in every sense of the word. This track for me was certainly one of the stand out tracks on the album because it touched my soul. I could listen to this track on repeat play all night and day and still feel moved to tears by it. Although this appears on the surface to be a simple little song it is anything but. Maybe it is the simplicity of the lyrics used here that makes the song so powerful when you listen to it? This song pulls at the heart strings. There is so much praise I could heap on this song. The chorus of this song says so much in so few words. There is so much devastation going on in the world yet the fortunate ones are safe and well enjoying the night.

Taken brings with it a change of tempo and mood once again. This song has interesting lyrics that tell a story of falling in love and how someone’s identity is taken so that all the person has left is memories of how their life used to be. I adore the quirky chorus used in this song, it is one of those that infects you and you spend the rest of the day humming the tune to yourself.

Tonight is a song about love, a love so intense that ‘three thousand miles can’t stop me from loving you’. The lyrics to all Fiona’s songs seem so real you can actually picture the lyrics coming to life. These are not just songs they are stories crafted together by atmospheric lyrics designed to captivate the listener and propel them into another world. Tonight is a slower number once more but it is still powerful. Although many of Fiona’s songs touch on the subject of love they are not romantic songs, they show that love is heart breaking and that fairy tale endings do not always exist in the real world. This album is definitely not for the faint hearted.

For The Love of You (The Chocolate Song) is a clever song using chocolate as a way of seduction in the lyrics. This song is a delicate breezy number, a change of style and pace from the other tracks on the album. There is a hint of jazz in this song, adding another string to Fiona’s bow. Although the lyrics here are simple they are still none the less thought provoking. This is a nice song to listen to on a summer’s day as you sit on the beach. This songs charm is heightened by the use of the saxophone.

Secrets of The Flesh is a song with an abundance of interesting and charming lyrics, plus the title itself leaves so much to the listener’s imagination. This is a song about seduction and how the air of mystery will be shattered if you let the other person in and perhaps give up ‘the secrets of the flesh’? I am perhaps more wrapped up in listening to the lyrics of this song than the song itself. I am envious of Fiona’s writing talents, this is writing at its very best. The second verse of this song is written in such a sensual way, it feels very erotic to hear and read the words – ‘maybe someday my naked lips will murmur your name, you might be my master fingersmith and paint fire in my veins, but now we’re here at the start of an ageless story and secrets of the flesh are undressed slowly”. There is only one word I can think of to describe how I feel about these lyrics and that word is – wow! This song feels very erotic – like you as a listener are peaking in on a world you shouldn’t be seeing. It is a credit to Fiona’s writing talents that you as a listener can feel like you are being given a chance to view the world, almost as if you are looking through a crack in a door.

Broken, like Secrets of The Flesh is another song jam packed with brilliant mind blowing lyrics, however the lyrics here are slightly darker and haunting. This song is so powerful because it is a gentle song that flows a long nicely yet the subject matter is anything but gentle “my demons sit here with me smiling smugly”.

The titles of Fiona’s songs capture the imagination even before you have read the lyrics or listened to the songs. The titles are dark and speak of fractured people damaged by a countless number of things. What prolific titles – Secrets of The Flesh, Thieves and Pimps Like Me and Graveyard. Fiona shows us that demons can haunt us in any number of ways, that life can be sensual and dark at the same time and that we are lucky, we are the fortunate ones.

Graveyard is a very interesting song lyrically. The graveyard in this song symbolises a place where worries and fears, thoughts and doubts are buried so that the person can be reborn with their negativity all gone. There are so many fantastic lyrics in this song it is hard to know which line is the best. I think for me the best line of this song has to be ‘out in the graveyard my former self is fading like a ghost’. On a personal note I found the lyrics here very liberating – wouldn’t it be great to lose your inhibitions, to leave all your worries and fears behind in a place where they can’t hurt you anymore and hold you back. To be reborn – ‘no more negativity or feeling lovelorn’. The possibilities here are endless. This is a strangely positive and uplifting song with an upbeat melody. A song for people stuck in a rut or for people who want to move forwards in their lives but feel they are being held back by old baggage and fears.

Thieves and Pimps Like Me emerged thanks to a quote by Hunter S Thompson. He wrote that the music business was cruel and shallow where thieves and pimps were allowed to run free and good men died like dogs. Fiona took that quote and put her own unique spin on it turning those words into a thought provoking song about how as a songwriter you put your emotions and life on display when you write the lyrics of a song. You are not just selling a song; you are also selling a small piece of your soul. I was touched by the lyrics of this song enormously as the words used are very prolific. In the final verse Fiona says ‘I’m addicted to analysis of every little thing and I keep track of everything it’s stuck under my skin, but it’s therapeutic to let it out, I’ll give you something to sing about’. Those few lines hold such power. This is a song that rings of truth and how a songwriter or anyone who writes for a living has to sell a piece of their soul each time they sell some of their material. If a writer does not write from the soul then their work is never going to be as good as it could be as you are holding someone back, but by writing from the soul, each time a piece of their work is published it is like having a raw wound on display for all to see. You can see the torn skin, you can see the oozing red blood and you can see the broken bones. You can see the flaws, you can see the heartbreak and the pain – it is there on display.

That’s What I’m Here For has mesmerising lyrics that float gently along. This is another of Fiona’s softer haunting songs. This is a song about love – ‘but you’re a man and I’m a woman and there’s a reason we were born, what can I do but love you?’ I like the idea Fiona creates with this song that a man and a woman have no choice but to love one another as that is what they are destined to do.

Where The Wild Things Are completes the album and features more stunning lyrics and a catchy chorus – ‘if I pop a sleeping pill I’d miss out on the gems that rattle round my head, half blind in the bathroom light I analyze my life’. This is a heavier song and a nice song to end off the album, although it is with a great sadness from the listener’s point of view that the album comes to a close. I could listen to Fiona’s voice forever. Her lyrics are so beautiful and powerful they have really captured a place in both my heart and my imagination.

How can I possibly sum up this album? It is an album that resonates with my soul on many levels. It is a striking album because it is so raw and fresh with no holes barred lyrics. Fiona has a wonderful voice, which can be full of angst one minute then gentle and soft like an angel the next. I love this album with all my heart. Every time you hear it you learn something new about yourself and pick out more fantastic lyrics that escaped you the last time you listened. It takes the listener on a way cathartic journey, this is an album for cleansing the soul and for flushing away the demons in your life and the baggage you carry around with you day after day.

My favourite track on this album has to be without a doubt – Tender Is The Night. It is not often a song moves me to tears but this song did just that. It is such a wonderful song; words cannot do my thoughts on this song justice. Lyrically I am torn between two songs being favourites – Secrets of The Flesh and Graveyard. Both songs have such powerful and illuminating lyrics that give much food for thought. Graveyard is a very cleansing song lyrically. There is so much you can take from the words of that particular song. Secrets of The Flesh on the other hand is outstanding lyrically because it is so erotic, sensual and full of passion yet it is only on closer inspection of the lyrics of this song that these words spring to mind. My other favourite song on this album has to be Thieves and Pimps Like Me. I like the lyrics because again they resonate with me. I like writing poetry and whatever I write I know a little piece of me is out there for the whole world to see, that can be both frightening and also very liberating. I think Thieves and Pimps Like Me echo’s those sentiments wonderfully.

This album is really a marvel for so many reasons. It is hard to compare Fiona to any other singers because she seems to have such a unique style and her lyrics are so fresh, so out there. Without a shadow of a doubt I would have to give this album ten out of ten. This is pure top class beauty in the form of twelve mesmerising tracks.