Forgiven, Not Forgotten [CD]

There are some excellent songs here - the title track, the aforementioned "Love to Love You", "Closer", "T*ss The Feathers" are all punchy, solid and do what they say on the tin. Sometimes the jaunty oirish fiddle does grate a little when it sashays in on a perfectly innocent pop song that was managing quite well without it. A couple of other songs sound great at first listen, but are subsequently revealed to be half-formed or (like "Secret Life") push the saccharine pop button just a little too hard.

However, minor complaints. This is better than the multi-mega-billion-selling "Talk on Corners".

A number of things immediately struck me about this album. Firstly, Andrea Corr's voice is quite fantastic - melodic and smooth, ideally suited to the music (her tin whistle playing's a bit good as well!). Secondly, the relatively unusual combination of violin, drums, guitar, tin whistle and vocals works brilliantly, and thirdly, having not listened to very much of this genre previously, I really enjoyed the traditional instrumentals especially Toss The Feathers.

There is a strong Irish theme throughout this album and for me it really makes this album stand out as something a bit special. Favourite tracks for me are probably Toss The Feathers, Someday, Runaway and Secret Life.

Brilliant!

I don't know what other people think, but I love all of the instrumental pieces in between the brilliant songs. They are something that I think you can listen to without really having to listen properly, probably because they have no lyrics. My favourite instrumental track has gotta be The Minstrel Boy, closely followed by the Carraroe Jig.

Out of all the vocal tracks, it's difficult to decide on a firm favourite, but it would probably be either Closer, The Right Time or Runaway. But that doesn't mean that the others are not good; in fact, there is not one bad song on the album. Andrea's voice is just brilliant, as are the others', and Sharon's violin playing is great in the tracks in which she plays. The group as a whole sound really good together; The Corrs are definitely one of my favourite bands.

There are some slow love songs such as runaway, and love to love you, some traditional or traditionally styled instrumentals. There are also enough uptempo songs in there such as Someday. Their is an influence of traditional Irish Music in some of their songs, which adds a lot to the music.

I don't know if this is better than Talk on Corners, but I think this is a bit better, although I haven't listen to this much. This seems to be more immediately appealling.

Basically fans of The Corrs shouldn't hesistate the get this, and others might be convinced.