CD Reviews

Sinéad O’Connor

Theology | Koch

By JEFF TAMARKIN | May 29, 2007

3.0 Stars

Sinéad O’Connor in the confession booth? Not quite, but the woman who once tore up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live has released a two-disc album called Theology. And she does have a few things to say to and about the higher power(s), all of them quite complimentary. But it’s not necessarily what you think, even if she did become a priest (in the breakaway Latin Tridentine Church) in 1999. O’Connor isn’t confusing personal faith with dogma: “I’ve heard religion say you’re to be feared, but I don’t buy into everything I hear,” she sings in “Psalm 130 (Out of the Depths).” And just to make sure the point gets across, she sings it twice, as she does every song but two on Theology: disc one was recorded in Dublin, acoustically, and disc two in London, with full accompaniment. She wrote most of the material herself (there are also covers of Curtis Mayfield and Jesus Christ Superstar’s “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” and the traditional “Rivers of Babylon”), and she draws on Old Testament Psalms, alluding to Jah, a disdain for abortion, and her bassist’s amp along the way. “Why did I not die at birth, expire as I came from the womb?” she asks in “Job (Watcher of Men).” As always, she’s questing for truth, equality, and beauty, wondering, in this moralistic love letter, whether in the end believing isn’t just a prayer for peace, love, and understanding.

Topics: CD Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Religion, Sinead O'Connor, More

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