The Fleadh Cowboys: "Time of Your Life" (Sidekick)

It might seem uncomfortably like damning with faint praise to say the Fleadh Cowboys are almost an institution. Pete Cummins and the rest of the merry men have been kicking up storms for some years, unfazed by changes in the musical climate. They have a strong sense of mission, but this latest collection finds them stretching out and beyond their stock in trade. There is an eclectic range of styles on show from Frank Lane's warm waltz, Mind The Gap, to Paul Kelly's Caribbean instrumental, Up Yeboah, an instrumental brother to a sizzling version of Bill Monroe's Jerusalem Ridge and on to the typical humour of the countryish I Lied To You. The absence of a strong voice is well disguised by a fine production and powerful backing vocals and the playing is, as ever, a pleasure to behold. Joe Breen

Micheal O Suilleabhain: "Becoming" (Venture/Virgin)

For good or ill, an O Suilleabhain is unmistakable.

These new suites for an augmented Irish Chamber Orchestra are packaged around his seven-movement piano symphony, Irish Destiny, which accompanied his 1925 silent film. There are the usual shadows of Larchet and his late mentor, Aloys Fleischmann, with some interesting quotations from Boydell's orchestration of the national anthem or, more stirringly, O Riada's Mise Eire, with a few shamelessly cinematic touches, straight from Jaws. Sweet this may be, but O Suilleabhain paints a big, powerful, constantly shifting mood canvas, steering from bombast to quietude and back again - and when it comes to taking a dance-tune to a piano, no-one can hold a candle to him. Mic Moroney

Maire Brennan: "Perfect Time" Word/Universal

The same big, autumnally sighing overkill production which launched both Clannad and Enya is brought to bear on this new solo album from Clannad's great frontwoman who, on the evidence of every song, has gone into religion in a big way. The emotion of the chalky, anthemic voice is all there, even if it's as much obscured as enhanced by the sonic gush and big, doomy percussion. The choice of single in Heal This Land is a little hick, as there are better tracks in Irish. I was personally taken by the Donegal Gaelic of Psalm 67, backed up the scrubbed, Sunday-morning authenticity of the Derrybeg church choir, and the raw harmonies of Gra De. But the rest of it can be ponderous enough. Mic Moroney