Show And Tell

It's been a while since David Holmes released a stand-alone, solo record, so 'The Holy Show' is an important one. And this time it's emphatically personal. The album gets its title from an old drinking club in the Markets area of Belfast, a boozer with the walls covered in religious icons. It was a preserve for the working men of the quarter and when the place finally closed down, each of the regulars tucked a picture under their arm and brought it all home.

The memory of the place connected David to his recently departed father, who spent much of his youth in the Markets before heading up the Ormeau Road with his growing family. The soul of Jack Holmes and his late wife Sarah is deeply meshed into the new recordings, a meditation on place and meaning and bloodlines. David had problems finding a singer who could reflect all of this, so he did the right thing and he sang much of it himself.

An online quote in today's NME site explains it further: "I had always wanted to make a record about my life in Belfast and all the things attached to that - family, friends, loss, love and starting a family of my own. All the stuff that shapes the person you become."

To some this might seem terribly sentimental, but fans of the Kevin Rowland school will appreciate that the personal can also be powerful and universal. Thus 'The Holy Show' hits you hard and it demands all of David's art to make it register. He is joined by the likes of Foy Vance, Tanya Melotte and Danny Todd from Cashier No. 9. It's a record that he clearly needed to made and which most of us ought to hear.