CD Review: Enya

Enya: A Day Without Rain (WEA)

By BBC News Online's David Whitehouse

Enya's distinctive and popular style, and her sales tally so far of 44 million albums, mean this CD will sell millions.

Like her other works it is a collection of hauntingly, often heartbreakingly beautiful melodies and arrangements with her characteristic mellifluent, layered vocals.

Some dismiss her work as Irish new age aural wallpaper, background music.

But this music's real depth is in the emotion behind the melodies.

The music has a deceptive simplicity yet underlying control that is the hardest thing to achieve. It takes time to appreciate it.

Enya shot to fame in 1988 with the Watermark album

Her voice is delicate at times, playful and smiling at others. Sometimes it seems if she should stand back and let rip, but that would to lose control, which would be out of place here.

It follows the same programmatic pattern as her other works. The single, Only Time, is graceful, romantic and lush.

Tempus Vernum is a moody, soft-gothic stormy terrain with ominous and then comforting passages.

It is in the same mould as Cursum Perfico from Watermark; After Ventus from Shepherd Moons and Pax Deorum from The Memory of Trees.

Irish moments

Enya's most intimate moments are sung in Irish, sung quietly, close to the microphone.

This is a collection that is, more than her others, a place for contemplation.

The nature of Enya's work, two years in the studio for this release, means that she is not prolific.

This album, her first since The Memory of Trees in 1995, is less than 35 minutes long and is over too soon.

The Japanese release has a different track that would have been nice here.

Overall, it is just what Enya fans will like, with tracks that could have come from any of her previous three albums.

It has been said that every artist has a "difficult" album.

So far Enya has been spared this artistic rite of passage and, given the controlled emotion of her work, I can hardly imagine she would.

But if she ever did depart from the formula built up over her past releases it would be a fascinating and revealing new journey.