Nine Lives is a live album by Nick Kelly, the former lead singer with The Fat Lady Sings. One that was never intended for release in this format.

After releasing a series of 3 new songs in 2007 under the pseudo name of Alien Envoy, Nick set about a new project in September 2009. Each month, for nine months, he performed an intimate live show at Upstairs at Dublin’s Whelan’s with a variety of musical collaborators. The aim, to try out new songs and arrangements before recording them in the studio.

Each show was recorded and when the final date was played everyone attending was given a copy of Nine Lives - an album of nine songs recorded over the gestation of the project - featuring Beautiful South singer Briana Corrigan, singer songwriter Boo Hewerdine, former Fat Lady Sings band members amongst many others.

So good were the recordings that Nick concluded it would be impossible to better them or capture the live intimacy of the material in the studio. So what started out as work in progress turned out to be the finished article. And it’s easy to see why - Nine Lives is a warm, brooding and intimate affair that rests comfortably between folk and rock and will appeal to fans of the Lisa Hannigan/Frames school of song writing.

***½

Review by Pete Whalley