Album reviews: Mick Flannery’s Goodtime Charlie tells vivid, evocative stories about ordinary people
An apt follow-up to his 2021 album In The Game, Flannery’s latest is musically exploratory and well worth a listen
Mick Flannery, Goodtime Charlie (Oh Boy Records/Rosa Productions)
How do you follow as class an album as 2021’s In the Game, a concept work that Cork-based Mick Flannery collaborated on with Co Clare singer and songwriter Susan O’Neill? That album’s textured material – the singers expertly playing off each other within the narrative of a couple’s slowly disintegrating relationship – removed in part the perception of Flannery as a gruff-voiced singer pensively complaining about life in general. Goodtime Charlie, however, replaces finger-pointing with finger painting wherein vivid, evocative stories are told about ordinary people.
