EP REVIEW: KRAKIN’ KELLYS – ‘Old Ways, New Days’ (2022)

Belgians Celtic-Skate Punks Krakin’ Kellys are back with six new songs!  

Regular readers could be forgiven for thinking that I have about 1000 favourite Celtic-Punk bands but if I had to pick just five then Belgium’s Krakin’ Kellys would definitely make it. Taking their lead from the first Dropkick Murphys album for pure Punk-Rock energy and throwing in some nice Celtic touches. Krakin’ Kellys are a band with an incredible set up. For a start they have some brilliant songs. Catchy as hell and packed with interesting influences. Then you have their videos which are constantly great fun to watch and far beyond the usual ‘filmed in a pub’ Celtic-Punk videos we see. Lastly we have Matthieu one of the best bagpipers in the scene and who Krakin’ Kellys put to great use throughout their songs.

(Recorded live at L’entrepôt Arlon, Belgium on St-Patrick’s day 2022

Kicking off with ‘1985 (Celtic Skate Punk)’ which was the first video / single from the album it’s a look back in time to better (?) days when we were young, fun and full of… never mind. I’ll try not to overuse the word catchy in this review but it’ll be hard. A real stomper of an opener with the guys reminiscing of the days when you could dance at a gig all night without stopping for a breather after one song! ‘Olympia, WA.’ is a cover of the Rancid track taken from their classic 1985 album Out Come The Wolves and the piping slots in so easy that after a few plays it no longer stands out. The songs talks about loneliness in a big city and how Tim yearns for the days he was a normal Punk back in his home town. ‘Start Over Again’ is a great song perhaps the albums standout. Great lyrics and melodic Punk sound that captures all the best bits of what was Skate-Punk. Sadly the genre would become completely lame as bands realised they could put out and old crap and the kids would lap it up. That’s not to say that it’s early days weren’t incredible with bands like Bad Religion, Lagwagon, NOFX. That is what is summed up next in ‘Old Ways, New Days’. I may be wrong as it’s not as easy to read these songs as our usual drinking and rebel songs!

So almost on cue is a cover of Bad Religion’s ‘American Jesus’ taken from their 1993 album Recipe For Hate. One of BR’s greatest songs and certainly long before they all started to sound the same Kellys give it a great treatment playing it the same but the different instrumentation and vocal style really add to it. The EP comes to an end with ‘Women Are Go !’ and played at breakneck speed it sees the release out in style.

Another craic-ing release from Krakin’ Kellys but Old Ways, New Days was released back on July 1st so it’s taken us a while to get around to it but in all that time it’s seen more than it’s fair share of plays in LCP towers. It was recorded at Gate Of Sound, Noise Factory, Coal and Rock’s Cool studios throughout Belguim by Jean-Louis Masuy, Nicola Lomartire and Matthieu and mixed and mastered by Nicola Lomartire. Along with his filming and piping talents Matthieu also supplied the artwork and we recently featured a Q and A with him that makes interesting reading.

(You can stream Old Ways, New Days and download it via the Bandcamp player below)

Buy Old Ways, New Days  FromTheBand

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