Music review: Standing on the Edge by Rob Halligan 

Encapsulating a range of moods, Rob's voice is layered with pain, practice, grace and love. There is an edge to his music - and that's where its power lies, writes Shaun Lambert

 
It was the title of this album from singer songwriter Rob Halligan that drew me in: Standing on the Edge. The last four years have felt like that for me and the theme is explored in other ways.

My favourite song is The Space Between, about being in the borderland, the space between, one slender thread of hope holding him in this wilderness where all has been stripped away. I think the song resonates with many people who are standing in that space gazing into the unknown.
 
Journeying and the road overlap with the liminal spaces he writes about. This can be seen in This Road, Walk This Road Together, and Cos You’ve Been There, (with Yvonne Lyon, Scottish folksinger).

Rob has pursued the lonely, difficult and yet rewarding pathway of being a singer songwriter, following the inner logic of his own being. And yet what also illuminates the album is the collaborations. Whether it is fellow musicians co-writing songs, or playing the fiddle, whistles, Bodhran (Irish drum), electric guitar, piano, and soprano sax you can see and hear the connections he has made with others over the last 20 years. This enriches the weaving together of the album.
 
He has stood on the edge of one of the biggest cracks in our world, the day 9-11 happened, and his dad died in one of the towers. Out of this experience comes the anthemic, Bigger Than Me (Love is Bigger). That love is bigger is one of those propositions that needs to move from our heads to our hearts. He handles the raw pain of this experience with grace and wisdom.
 
The album encapsulates a range of moods, and I am particularly taken by Strange What A Song Can Do, how a song can take us back in time to a particular memory, bitter or sweet or both. The line He’s got no idea how this music will/hold/to a moment in time/more precious than gold is evocative and poetic. It’s a form of Kintsugi gold, broken and repaired.
 
His voice is layered with pain, practice, grace and love, and is that of a storyteller and connector, someone who makes pathways with others and stands in those in between places with them. There is an edge to Rob and his music and that’s where its power lies. It’s strange what some songs can do for you. Steal away and give them a try.

Shaun Lambert is a Baptist minister, psychotherapist, writer and mindfulness researcher whose new book has just been published: Mindful Formation: A Pathway to Spiritual Liberation