The Irish Times
September 23, 1994, CITY EDITION

By KEVIN COURTNEY


    Sinead O'Connor: "Universal Mother" Ensign, 7243 8 30549 2 3 (50 mins)

   All right, put away those knives. Sinead O'Connor's first album of original
material since the 1990's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is not half as bad as
everybody would like it to be. There seems to be a general incapacity to
separate Sinead O'Connor's public persona from her music, and thus every song on
this record is in danger of being judged purely in terms of the personal traumas
and upheavals which, presumably, inspired them.

   And yes, there is a lot of wittering on about mothers and children, and pain
and hurt, and loneliness and grief, and even that bloody potato famine which
O'Connor can't seem to get out of her head. But there are also some lovely tunes
and poignant melodies, and a sense of culture and history seldom found, in Irish
rock music, an awareness of shared heritage and - inherited sadness which most
Irish artists push to the side in their efforts to seem strong, invincible and
radio friendly. O'Connor has always known she is flawed and weak, but now she is
close to understanding why, and in turning the mirror on to her own damaged
psyche, she also shines an ace using torch on us all.

   But while Sinead may finally be on the road to recovery, and may even one day
reach that potential which she has denied herself thus far, Universal Mother is
still bogged down by the need for therapy and catharsis which has become
O'Connor's musical stock in trade. The dance beat of Fire In Babylon is unable
to sustain the sheer weight of O'Connor's bitterness, while Red Football takes a
repetitive piano motif and hammers home a petulant, pseudo-feminist message. In
most, of these songs the music is just the icing on the cake, but you also have
to chew through sampled speeches by author Germaine Greer and former Taoiseach
Jack, Lynch, as well as a sticky-sweet ditty by Sinead's son Jake, a cod a to
her own childlike lullabye. O Connor is at her best when soothing the child
inside herself, as in A Perfect Indian or Scorn Not His Simplicity, with nothing
but Phil Coulter's piano to shelter her soul from the shivering wind. Echoes of
Tori Amos resound through Sinead's version of Nirvana's All Apologies, but
somehow this song suits her unwelcome role as the media's whipping girl. There I
go again, making connections with real life.

   In contrast to her last album, when O Connor cowered behind an over or chest
rated hotchpotch of cover tunes, Universal Mother clears away the emotional
baggage and blows away the foggy arrangements, till it sounds almost vapid in
parts. Yet it's a bare faced, honest, even brave attempt to speak from the
heart, without fear of ridicule and with only a slight suspicion of betrayal.

   We have kicked and spat at rock's Joan of Arc for so long now that our scorn
is becoming gratuitous it's time to stop the abuse and let this small, lonely
but still lovely voice speak loud and clear once more.