In break from normal when it comes to reviewing, I'm going to start off this effort with the conclusion. Buy the damn thing and be done with it. There's no way that I or any critic/reviewer who claims to have any sensitivity to creative energy can in honestly "tell you what it's all about" because we didn't pen the goddamn thing, for which I can't decide whether to be jealous or grateful. If that made sense then you're halfway to understanding the problem faced by me, anyway.

"Yonder!" as in "Look over yonder and what did I see, waiting for to carry me home?" "Calliope?" although not one of the heavenly hosts one's liable to see over the river Jordan on most days, less you're a sun kissed poet or been blessed by Allah with the gift of verse, is in her way angelic enough. That's in spite of her habit of being as fickle as whatever people are as fickle as, and as coy with her charms as a young thing raised by nuns set lose on the world with a yen to know a lot more than the sisters were willing and able to show her.

Calliope is of course inspiration, or at least one of the infamous muses who will periodically deign to whisper in a man or woman's ear in such a way that they will be infused with the desire to write, sing, dance, versify, and in all other ways possible, expose their soul for all the world to gaze upon.

Taken together, with the exclamation point and the question mark bracketing the muse as they are in Yonder! Calliope? — Aaron McMullan's debut CD on the brand new Ex Libris label out of London, England — tells you quite a bit about this young man from Belfast and the music that this CD tries to contain. One, he believes in the power of inspiration, and two he is still hasn't quite been able to bring her, Calliope, into focus.

What he has produced on this wonderful debut are finely crafted, soulfully executed, songs that burst at the seams with humanity. Honest and clear-eyed, Aaron has looked at the world around him and found what he considers beautiful, what he considers tawdry, and brought both to life in music.

Musically this album has the vitality of early punk, but instead of the musical mayhem associated with that genre, the energy has been given focus and intent. Its most obvious expression comes in the urgency and depth of emotion that can be heard in his voice on each song. Words pour out of his mouth like they are hot coals that have been born in the furnace of his soul.

At times his passion makes the words nigh on incomprehensible as they pile drive their way into your heart, but sometimes the mere sound words make have more meaning then if they were comprehended intellectually. Like tone poetry, the sound of his voice mixed with guitar communicates far more coherently then any so-called love song rendered by some pop Diva yearning for her true love.