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Artist: Maria McKee 
Label: Cooking Vinyl A
Length: 12 tracks

Maria McKee gave up on the charts many years ago, no doubt perturbed that her weakest ever song "Show Me Heaven" topped the charts. In recent years, she has been doing her own thing, not caring whether anyone really cares or not which is just as well because very few seem to care. 2003’s High Dive was lavishly produced and she returned to a more familiar roots style for 2005’s Peddlin’ Dreams. She took the opportunity in the dialogue between songs on her live acoustic album from 2006 to warn her older fans that she was off again on her self-indulgent fetishes and so Late December is again like no other McKee album, although, there are little echoes of nearly everything she has ever done. Like High Dive there is a '70s production thing going down with hints at Meat Loaf, Queen though less echoes of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass this time. It is big and layered, dramatic, operatic, and at times not short of bombastic. But then "My First Night Without You" could have been on her eponymous debut and she covers her own song, if that is possible, with her first studio version of "A Good Heart," written when she was 18 and a member of Lone Justice. It was number one all over Europe for ex-Undertones Fergal Sharkey. Here McKee retreats it to see if she might get some radio play. You see I think she does care about what the radio thinks. No matter what the arrangement, it is that emotional powerhouse of a voice that stands out though there is no doubt that there are times when she both stretches it too far and over layers it too much. There are some good moments on "Late December" but overall she is frustratingly contrary.
  
 Steve Stockman

Steve Stockman is the Presbyterian Chaplain at Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, where he lives in community with 88 students. He has written two books Walk On; The Spiritual Journey of U2 which he is currently updating and The Rock Cries Out; Discovering Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music. He dabbles in poetry and songwriting and he has a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster (listen anytime of day or night @ www.bbc.co.uk/ni/religion/rhythmandsoul). He has his own web page--Rhythms of Redemption at http://stocki.ni.org . He also tries to spend some time with his wife Janice and daughters Caitlin and Jasmine.