The Mask And The Mirror - Loreena McKennitt

I don't have many regrets in life but one of them is not discovering the music of Loreena McKennitt earlier in life! Sadly, she is not that well known in the UK and I only came across her music when it was featured in quirky TV drama 'Strange Luck'. Mckennitt is often compared to artists like Enya and Sarah Mclachlan. She has a ghostly operatic style voice with a Celtic accent - her parents were Irish and Scottish and she grew up in Canada. This album is perhaps the best so far in Mckennitts career. Each song is brilliantly written and performed. The Mystic's Dream is a classic Loreena track - she has performed this live many times since this recording. ...  Read the complete review

Like most of Loreena McKennitt's work, this album takes the form of a musical journey, a journey across not only physical landscapes, but also through time. Often seen as a competitor to Enya's place as queen of this almost cross-genre new age chilled music, the two ladies do have a lot in common both musically and personally. However to merely label her work as an Enya copyist is doing a major disservice as for as much as they have in common with each other, there is as much that separates them. Whilst Enya seems content to reference fantasy realms and dreamscapes, McKennitt's interest seems to lie in real places, historical settings and foreign cultures, enabling her ...  Read the complete review