Berlin’s No. 1 Folk-Punk band are back with a new 7″ vinyl release.
It’s been seven years since The Pokes were last featured on these pages for their album Mayday, and the intervening years seem to have done them no harm judging by this their new single. Now two tracks in seven years doesn’t seem like much of a return but I have to say that both these songs are top notch and I thoroughly enjoyed them and hopefully they point to a rejuvenated Pokes and new recordings to come. Based in Berlin, Germany ‘Sail’ is the bands sixth release since their debut EP Hello, My Dear in 2005 and show a band that has always took it’s time and never rushed out their releases. On their web-site you can download for free a whole bunch of songs from their previous albums which track their progression from those early days and their incorporation of genres like Klezmer and Ska into their trademark sound. In the review of Mayday I compared them to legendary Geordie Folk-Punkers The Whisky Priests but here on ‘Sail’ they have a far more punky sound while still retaining a whole host of Folk and Celtic instruments.
The first track here is ‘Catch Me’ and a tale of a harassed delivery driver rushing from delivery to delivery (“Call me wanker, Call me Santa, I’m the parcel guy on the run”) and a plea for us all to be nicer to them though I must admit to not finding it easy when you find a parcel outside in the rain because they haven’t rang the doorbell! Catchy as feck with chugging guitar and fiddle the song soon sweeps away with accordion and drums kicking in. The Pokes manage to convey their message with humour something a lot of bands ought to realise makes it easier to digest. (“Yeah, one day I am going to burn, Burn all your parcels and quit”) A fantastic start which even sees the pipes taking a turn halfway though the song and we can never resist the sound of that magical instrument. The title track ‘Sail!’ is the flipside and again is sung in English, not untypical for German bands at all. The song has a sea-shanty feel to it unsurprisingly and while it may have been middle-class hipsters that brought the sea-shanty back out into the open again Celtic-Punk bands have been singing them for decades now. The accordion is king here and leads from beginning to end as the catchiness reaches #11!
Together the 7″ lasts almost eight minutes so decent value too. Released primarily on vinyl which has slowly but surely started to return to Celtic-Punk the cover features accordion player Matthias and is released on the famous German DIY label Mad Butcher Records. These two songs can be viewed as a taster as the good news is that a fifth Pokes album is currently on the way and will also be released by Mad Butcher. What can we say except more of the same please guys!!
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Tagged: The Pokes, Whisky Priests
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[…] CD album comes with the added bonus of the vinyl only Sail single from earlier this year and also with a extensive 16-page booklet. The album was released on […]