Frances Black”Talk to Me” Celtic Heartbeat /...

Frances Black

“Talk to Me”

Celtic Heartbeat / Atlantic

No one can melt a heart as quickly as an Irish singer with the right song. Frances Black has the right song right off on her debut solo album. The first track, Christie Hennessy’s “All the Lies That You Told Me” has one of those oh-so-gently descending melodies that traces the downward spiral of heartbreak, and Black’s angelic voice makes the hurt all the more tangible. What makes it more than just a melancholy you-lied-and-now-I’m-leaving tale, however, is the lyric’s extra layer of ambiguity over the prospect of actually saying goodby and moving on.

Black is a member of Ireland’s Black Family of musicians, which also includes her more famous sister, Mary Black. From the four Nanci Griffith tunes she covers, Black obviously is a fan of Griffith, with whom her voice shares an ability to invoke waif-like fragility when the emotion demands it.

She also knows her way around jazz and blues tunes, and she bounces happily through the mind-game pop of John Lennon’s “Intuition.” It’s those ballads, though, such as Griffith’s “Talk to Me While I’m Listening,” that cut to the quick.