For those unaware, on March 8th, 2024, Juno Award-winning Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt, who has sustained international acclaim for over 30 years, will be releasing a new album that harkens back to the earliest days of her career and the most traditional of Celtic music.

The Road Back Home was recorded during the summer of 2023 when she performed at four folk festivals in southern Ontario. It was a return to her roots, a sort of musical winding back to where it all began. The early songs, the local musicians, the bursts of energy and spontaneity in those local performances are what inspired this new album that will now be on offer to a global audience.

Soon to be released on CD and 180g vinyl, and via digital music services including Dolby Atmos, the album features 10 songs, including many pieces that date back to McKennitt’s earliest days on the folk circuit and which have remained unrecorded until now.

In short, The Road Back Home is an homage to what feels like simpler times, offering comfort and familiarity. It’s like going home.

Side A:
1. Searching for Lambs (3:32) 2. Mary & The Soldier (4:04) 3. On a Bright May Morning (4:33) 4. As I Roved Out (4:54) 5. Custom Gap (3:56)

Side B:
6. Bonny Portmore (3:42) 7. Greystones (3:32) 8. The Star of the County Down (3:42) 9. Salvation Contradiction (4:22) 10. Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór/Wild Mountain Thyme (6:15)

In my humble opinion, this could be easily be named as Loreena’s masterpiece, lest we forget her incredible The Book of Secrets and the impassioned An Ancient Muse, of course.

That all said though, this recording is, perhaps, just a little more special within its overall creation, to my ear. For once you put the vinyl LP on your turntable, hear how it connects to the needle, close your eyes and settle into your comfy chair, you can immediately feel as if you have been to the places that Loreena has obviously been to in order to gather inspiration for these stunningly beautiful recordings.

The most wonderful soprano voice of Loreena, enhanced by some mesmerizing lyrics, open the first side of the vinyl with the haunting Searching for Lambs and then we get brought forth the pleasingly heartwarming Mary & The Soldier, the flutteringly ethereal On a Bright May Morning, and both the uplifting, spirited As I Roved Out and the Celtic-hipsway of Custom Gap.

Flipping the vinyl carefully over and the second side of ambient tracks begins with the stoic storytelling within Bonny Portmore and the free flowing musical melodies that gloriously ebb and flow throughout Greystones, and they are then in turn backed seamlessly by the embodied The Star of the County Down, the album rounding out on the richly all-embracing Salvation Contradiction, closing on the languishing beauty of Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór/Wild Mountain Thyme.

Every note performed by McKennitt and her new cohort of collaborators was recorded, capturing the deep affection and sense of community such musical events foster in the hearts of performers and folk festival devotees alike.

“There are many ways to define the word ‘home’,” observes McKennitt. “It may well be the structure in which we live, but it can also be the cultural expressions of community which somehow reach into our hearts and souls and draw us together without us completely understanding why.”

Official Purchase Links

www.loreenamckennitt.com

Loreena McKennitt @ Instagram