MAPPE OF

The Isle Of Ailynn PAPER BAG

8/10

Drama and dreaming on Canadian’s fine second

Despite its heavy debt to Bon Iver, Tom Meikle’s 2017 debut impressed with his use of fingerpicking, vocal reverb and intimate space. His follow-up makes a far more distinctive mark, creating a mythological world with parallels to our currently collapsing environment while tapping ancestry and archaic language alike. That might suggest some bloated prog opus, but The Isle Of Ailynn is more a fever dream of orchestral pop, electronica, pastoral folk and Radiohead’s mutant millennial rock – lush, at times strange and admirably ambitious. Standouts are the tremulous “Estuary”, with its synth and supple vocal harmonies, and “Icovellavna”, at nine dramatic minutes, more of a suite than a song.