Again, there are three, wait, four songs coming into the mix, with “Flea As a Bird Clog” giving way to “The Night We Had the Goats Reel”, which is another traditional piece. From there it morphs quickly into a train-chugging number that picks up speed and never seems to slow down. There’s a bit of Western swing in the track that the musician seems to lap up eagerly. MacMaster has never been one to shy from different styles or genres, and the slow, shuffling and jaunty “Flea As a Bird” hops around as quickly as the aforementioned insect on a hot shovel. But MacMaster is just as strong here as ever in terms of his playing, even when the tune takes a somewhat funky detour. Here the music is a bit more genre-crossing and seems to fall more into the “world/pop/adult contemporary” realm. From there, MacMaster changes gears somewhat with the reflective “NPG”, a string of three reels or jigs fused together starting off with the slow but toe-tapping “The Sunday Reel” featuring a dueling fiddle/bagpipe portion with Matt MacIsaac.
Think of something along the lines of Celtic Woman or Altan and you should get the gist of this song’s energy and flow before breaking open for a fine finale. And MacMaster, like so many other fiddlers, relishes in the fact that Eggleston can handle some lead duties during the middle portion. MacMaster wastes no time getting into her niche with the bouncy and fluid “Volcanic Jig”, which is given a slightly classical feeling over the Celtic overtones thanks to cellist Rushad Eggleston, who seems to veer from a slow, deliberate style of playing to a rather frantic, vibrant, and energetic mode. The first album from MacMaster in a couple of years finds her sticking to what she does best, namely reels, jigs, laments, and anything else that would fit perfectly into any Maritime, East Coast, or Atlantic Canadian “kitchen party.” Slowly but steadily, MacMaster continued to break new ground, expand her horizons, and attract larger audiences. The relative of fiddling great Buddy MacMaster and a cousin of Ashley MacIsaac, the young MacMaster seemed to take the high road while MacIsaac seemed to burn brightly but burn out just as quickly.
Natalie MacMaster is from my own stomping grounds on Cape Breton Island.
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