Perhaps the name of The Celtic Tenors was chosen in the hopes that the prospective audience would make a subconscious association with the popular Three Tenors (Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras) and thereby give these singing lads (billed on their website as “the most successful classical crossover artists ever to come out of Ireland”) some classical street cred. As it is, their name is about the only thing remotely classical or operatic about these guys. These are Broadway voices, and by that I mean modern-day microphone-amplified Broadway voices and not those of the golden era when legit meant legit. Accordingly, there’s a good deal of smooth crooning going on here and, as none of these voices is distinguished, the trio sounds best when harmonizing.
As for the music itself, much of the album sounds like a soundtrack for a modern Disney musical (Aladdin meets the Three Musketeers?). However, there are a couple of Celtic folk-inspired songs wherein the trio lives up to its name, most notably the beautiful Suo Gan. After this comes the anthem-like Westering Home, which ends the program.
The recording reflects Telarc’s pop production values–no real sense of space, more vividness than major label efforts of this type. If you hate those kitschy Three Tenors albums, you’ll hate this one worse. [11/10/2011]
