Grá agus Bás, the Nonesuch debut album from Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy, receives a perfect five stars from the Guardian. The album includes the title piece, which was inspired by sean-nós "old style" Irish vocal music, as well as the composer’s song cycle That the Night Come, comprising six settings of poems by W.B. Yeats. The Dublin–based Crash Ensemble performs both works, conducted by Alan Pierson. Irish singer Iarla O’Lionáird is the soloist for Grá agus Bás; Dawn Upshaw is featured on That the Night Come.

"Donnacha Dennehy's music had already made a potent synthesis of the pulsing energy of minimalism with the harmonic richness of the spectralists before he grafted onto it the traditions of his native Ireland," writes Guardian music critic Andrew Clements of the album's title piece. Clements calls it "remarkable ... a piece of startling freshness."

That the Night Come, also on the new album, "may be more conventional than the compelling continuity of Grá agus Bás," Clements explains, but "is exquisitely shaped and perfectly conceived for Upshaw's voice."

Read the complete review at guardian.co.uk.

The Irish Times, which recently profiled Dennehy, notes, in a review of the new album, "the restrained vocal beauty of Dawn Upshaw" and the "sophisticated, finely wrought accompaniments" of That the Night Come.

"No, I can’t pronounce this either," quips Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed of Grá agus Bás. "But the Irish sure sounds good in song on the first major release of the music by the Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy." Swed calls the title piece "rapturous" and says "Upshaw gets at the heart of Yeats’ sad, haunted beauty" of That the Night Come. Read more at latimes.com.

To pick up a copy of Grá agus Bás, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the complete album at checkout.