EP REVIEW: TULLAMORE- ‘Déš An Pr’i Strà, Déš An Int ál Bar’ (2018)

Italian Celtic-Punk from the swamp influenced by the Dropkick Murphy’s, Flogging Molly, The Tossers, beer and a certain brand of Irish whiskey!

Tullamore were founded in northern Italian city of Pavia in 2007 and this EP is released to celebrate their tenth anniversary together. The EP’s title translated to English means ‘Ten Years On The Streets, Ten Years At The Bar’ and is pretty apt for a band named after one of Ireland’s premier whiskeys! The original idea being to bring together the traditional folk of the Celtic nations with good old fashioned Italian punk rock. The first incarnation of the band were together three years and released their first demo in 2010. Four songs that included the first song the band ever wrote, ‘Sogno l’Irlanda’ (‘I Dream Of Ireland’), the first song that Tullamore ever wrote and which these days they end all their concerts. As is the way with most bands members come and go and with a few changes in personnel it was decided that the band should move towards a more powerful celtic-punk sound with Albe abandoning electric guitar in favour of the mandolin and Iora becoming the bands vocalist leaving the bass in the hands of Sandrone, and at the end of 2011 Perni joins the band on electric guitar. In January 2013 Tullamore released their first EP of seven songs that showed the band’s potential and hit the streets running. Fast celtic-punk sung in Italian that got a great reception on release and is now available as a Free Download/Pay What You Want on Tullamore’s Bandcamp page- link below.

More band members came and went and the band began to play and tour a bit more often and started to make a name for themselves outside their home area. In October 2016 the band released their debut album titled ‘Palude’ (-‘Swamp’) and again it received plaudits from across the celtic/folk-punk scene. Now with a fiddle player added to the mix and even the odd song in English the LP is a successful mix of fast but not too heavy punk rock and trad Irish tunes. With a strong anti-fascist sentiment throughout the album the band pay tribute to freedom fighters around the world and produced a very good album of celtic-punk with their own sound.

And so the Tullamore adventure continues and at the beginning of 2017 original member Misu leaves leaving Perni on guitar and Bert is recruited on accordion. Today’s Tullamore are raring to go and to celebrate ten years on the road they have recorded this EP of five songs with three unreleased collaborations with friends, a cover and a re-recording of that first ever song.

Déš An Pr’i Strà, Déš An Int ál Bar begins with that original song ‘Sogno l’Irlanda’ and accordion kicks us off before the band jump in and its fast and furious music made for the dance floor. The balance between celtic and punk is just right and they are quite right to be proud of their first ever song. They follow this with the first of their collaborations with Bebe of Livorno based streetpunkers Urban Vietcong taking over on vocals but with a fantastic gang chorus of

“30 years old, another victim here’s to you, fire of freedom”

with the whole band singing along. The song is about the life of Mairéad Farrell. She was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army who was executed in Gibralter in 1988 during a British Army operation aimed at preventing the bombing of the ceremonial changing of the guard. A fitting tribute. A documentary well worth checking out is Fourteen Days which examines the events that began with the SAS operation in Gibraltar that left three members of the IRA unit dead, including Mairéad and the chain of events that followed leaving a further nine people dead and more than 50 injured. The film is on YouTube here but for how long is anyone’s guess. The series of events would go on to define the war in Ireland for generations to come.

Next up is ‘Pronti ad Offendere’ (-‘Ready To Offend’) and features Alex Alesi on vocals and shows, like all the best celtic-punk bands, a more gentler side to Tullamore before the band launch into more spirited and manic celtic-punk. While the bands music has seen a softening Iora’s vocals remain firmly embedded in the punk scene giving Tullamore a much harder edge than many fellow celtic-punk bands. Rowing towards shore we have ‘Ribelle Senza un Perché’ (-‘Rebel Without a Why’) which again features a guest vocalist with Giulio from fellow Italian punk’n’Oi! band 5MDR. It’s all great fun and made for the dance floor before the Bhoys wrap it up with a cover of the auld Irish rebel song ‘Come Out You Black and Tans’. Sometimes it takes a non-Irish band to inject some life into a song and Tullamore certainly do that here. The song may be nearly 100 years old and covered by many in the folk scene but here its given a lift with Perni singing the verses with the band joining in the chorus over the snap of the drum to keep beat and get your Irish blood pumping! The lads have been over to Ireland countless times including last years celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising making friends young and old. A inspiring band!

Tullamore standing from the left: Fra (fiddle), Teo (bass), Santo (drums) and Perni (guitar). Crouched from the left: Bert (accordion), Iora (vocals) and Albe (mandolin)

Released last week this is a fantastic EP and a great way to celebrate your anniversary. As everywhere these days there are some fantastic Italian celtic-punk bands and the one thing I have noticed is that they all manage to bring their own sound to the genre and Tullamore are no different. Brilliant band with sound politics and one to mark out for greater things.

(you hear all of Tullamore’s great EP for **FREE** before you buy by pressing play on the Bandcamp player below)

Buy Déš an pr’i strà, déš an int ál bar

FromTheBand

Contact Tullamore

Facebook Bandcamp YouTube Twitter LastFM