The Harvest Ministers are an Irish band, based now in Britain, who have recorded for Sarah records and have a new album out on Setanta. They offer a mixture of several folk traditions: pub music of Ireland, the sophistocated but low-key albums of Van Morrison, and the more angular neo- folk of Americans such as Bob Dylan or more recent purveyors of the genre. A Feeling Mission has, in fact, a distinctly Dylan-esque quality to it, from the timbre of William Merriman's voice, to the gentle folky tempos, and through the interesting and vaguely intellectual lyrics. Consider a few lines from "A Drowning Man," for instance: "...and by your own omission [sic], you bear a slight resemblance to a drowning man who is soured by vengeance..." and so forth. Other songs show a working familiarity with Biblical and hymnal imagery.
On some tracks, female vocals are added to good effect by Maeve Roche. "Temple of Love," for example, with plaintive violin, piano, and acoustic guitars, begins to evoke comparisons to early 10,000 Maniacs recordings, or Beautiful South songs with female lead vocals.
The band and album are not as gritty as Souled American, Uncle Tupelo and its later incarnations, or early Jayhawks, but the production on A Feeling Mission allows a lively interplay between the guitars, violin, piano, restrained percussion, and vocal harmonies. Only on a few tracks do they seem to make an obvious mistake, like on "She's Buried," where the synthetic keyboards ruin the organic, acoustic atmosphere thats elsewhere pervades the album.
