About
“Come As You Are has Niamh Regan in total control of her artistic faculties and at the top of her game; she will be one to watch in the coming years… this is an album that needs to be heard, a project teeming with quiet intensity and resonance…” 9/10 The Line of Best Fit
“A powerful second album…Come As You Are’ is a delightful album full of delicate vocals, subtle hooks and exquisite instrumentation.” CLASH Magazine
“A beautiful, breathtakingly candid indie folk record of self-acceptance, Niamh Regan’s ‘Come As You Are’ is an intimate, emotionally charged invitation to embrace ourselves for who we are and lean into our light – even when it’s dark outside.” Atwood Magazine
“There’s a touch of Laura Marling in her voice, something of John Martyn in her intonation and Nick Drake in her guitar picking, the influence of everyone from Jeff Tweedy to Josh Ritter in her crafted storytelling…” 8/10 UNCUT Magazine
“…one of the most formidable forces in the Irish indie-folk scene… a pristine record which deals with faltering relationships, self-doubt, and love with exactitude and fearless candour.” 9/10 Hot Press
“There’s hypnotic late-night deep synths, plus a woozy, bespangled hidden track. In all, intelligent and beautifully idiosyncratic” 4/5 Mojo Magazine
“Come As You Are is a brutally authentic work from a songwriter of the highest order.”- KLOF Mag
NIAMH REGAN’s 2020 debut album ‘Hemet’ introduced her as an artist with a gift for crafting folk-tinged songs with a quiet, reflective intensity. The release started to make waves and led to nominations for both the RTE Folk Awards and the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’.
‘Hemet’ was produced by Alex Borwick and released by the Galway-based label The Black Gate. The writing of the record was split between her hometown of Galway, and Hemet in California, where her husband is originally from. The release of her debut album brought her from open mics to headline tours around Ireland, UK, Australia, and more. Pairing this with many festivals and a variety of support opportunities with artists such as CMAT, Villagers, John Grant, SOAK, Patrick Watson, Sam Amidon, Cormac Begley, Sorcha Richardson, Josh Ritter, and many more, which has led to Niamh’s new-found confidence and joy performing on stage.
Niamh Regan recently shared her second album, ‘Come As You Are’, released via Faction Records.
‘Come As You Are’ is an album full of acutely observed vulnerabilities and introspection. Its themes are the issues that many of us find loom large in the small hours: questions of self-doubt, uncertainty about your life’s direction, whether relationships are flourishing in the way you’d hoped and determining priorities.
Niamh’s goal for the record was to achieve a richer, full live band sound, inspired by her love of Julia Jacklin, Caroline Rose, and especially Wilco. While there are moments of intimacy, the songs on ‘Come As You Are’ are far grander in scale and ambition than those on ‘Hemet’: the rousing, string-assisted majesty of ‘Waves’, subtle electro-pop beats dancing at the base of the mix in ‘Nice’, the dreamy Petty-esque melancholic swirl of ‘Blame’, and standout track ‘Music’, which, if not for the expressive feminine elegance of her voice, could feel like a lost classic from Jeff Tweedy and co.
While ‘Come As You Are’ represents a bold evolution for Niamh, its opening track ‘Madonna’ is the song that feels most intrinsically tied to her debut. Or as Niamh offers, “I wanted to start the album kind of as bravely as possible and I think that way is to do it on your own.” Its raw, one-take live recording of her voice and acoustic guitar has a hymnal warmth. When asked to speak more about the lyrics she explained the song touches on difficult subjects we as a society tend to tiptoe around and avoid talking about.
She does, however, have a contagious passion for talking about performing live. After honing her stage presence in the wake of ‘Hemet’ she explains the joy of releasing new music for her is performing it to a live audience, “It’s the best feeling and I think I’ll be chasing it for the rest of my life.”
And that’s a feeling that ‘Come As You Are’ will help her tap into. It’s an album which is a confident step forward, full of songs with the spark to come alive on stage and with the immediacy to beckon newcomers into her world. It’s been a long journey since ‘Hemet’, but now Niamh Regan is perfectly positioned to take her music to the next level.
