Amazon.co.uk Review
Supported by the usual crew of great African and Irish musicians, Grammy award nominated Afro Celt Sound System's third album,
Further In Time is not the most convincing showcase of Afro Celt Sound System's craftsmanship and versatility. Previously, ACSS made techno-infected music that didn't just borrow a few African and Celtic flavours but strove to create something new and expressive from both. This time, however, the Afro-Celt aesthetic has lost some of its whip-cracking fire. It is less integrated and engaging than usual but they have still fashioned an album of quiet extremes.
Further In Time begins in characteristic form with "North" which is lovely, original drum & bass, embellished with fiddles and evocative chanting. Into this Afro-Celt invocation, the bland "When You're Falling" featuring Peter Gabriel sounds like it's walked off a MOR Tom Petty album. The first track by Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, "Life Begin Again" isn't much better and soon you're wishing Sinead O'Connor or Iarla O'Lionard would swing into view. However "Colossus", exuberant, "Shadowman" and the elegiac, funky title track go some way to make amends. Although
Further In Time is full of high calibre musicianship, dazzling polyrhythms and lots of heart, the end result is a pretty patchy album. --
Reuben Dessay
fRoots, June 2001
Frankly I'm amazed Afro Celts are still here. Well, here in this form, sounding so cogent and together. Marrying music of such disparate and explosive character is fraught with intimidating challenges and the last time I saw them live they seemed to be charging irrevocably towards a faintly cartoonesque OD of self-indulgent sound overkill and beat frenzy. Volume 2 had many moments of brilliance but its knock on effect appeared to be tipping them over the edge and for a band reliant on instinctive flair and the fashionable vagaries of dance music it was asking a lot for them to maintain the same level of ingenuity, inspiration and energy. Yet here we are hopping around the front room like ranting kangaroos as they once more put the boot into this particularly mix of elderly traditions and modern technology. Less noodling than the first album, more songs than the last and plenty of subtlety and instrumental virtuosity to temper the inevitable thump of beats. In the midst of a blistering fusillade of, erm, Afro-Celtishness, there suddenly appears an utterly delectable uillean pipe solo by Liam O'Flynn to introduce a song of heartbreaking beauty performed by Iarla Ó Lionáird and Pina Kollars. It's moments like these--the ability to turn the whole mood of the album on its head and their sheer unpredictability--that makes them special. You slide into a trance groove but before you know it there's some curious sample or a bout of tabla or something wonderful involving James McNally looming on the horizon. And Julie Murphy all but steals the show to underline her emergence as one of the greatest singers in the land with her electrifying counterpoint vocals to Robert Plant on "Life Begins Again". There are issues, of course there are issues. The presence of Robert Plant and Peter Gabriel (singing on "When You're Falling") offer a Great Marketing Opportunity but jar slightly with the spirit of the album, not to mention lending an unwanted retro '70s feel. The Gabriel track especially--good though it is with single potential--sounds like, well, a Peter Gabriel track with little relevance to the rest of the album. You wonder if such additions are gratuitous and we lose the baffling, but mesmerising thread of sound collages that remain at the heart of their music and were certainly responsible for the success of the first album. Also the Afro element seems to have diminished to detrimental effect. While the Celt end of it is emphasised further with some excellent contributions (Liam O'Flynn on pipes, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh on fiddle, Myrdhin on Celtic harp, Nigel Eaton on hurdy gurdy, Ciaran Tourish on fiddle), the African connection is underplayed despite a Manu Dibango sample providing the heartbeat of opening track "North". That said, there's plenty going on here to lift you to your feet and dump you on the seat of your pants at regular intervals. The magic does indeed live on.
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