LONDON CELTIC PUNKS PRESENTS OUR BEST OF 2014!

TOP TWENTY CELTIC PUNK ALBUMS OF 2014

Last year our ‘Best Of’ list was completely dominated by bands from these shores but this time there’s a much more international flavour to 2014’s Best Album’s list. Again Irish influenced bands dominate but the absolute standout album for me was without a doubt Uncle Bard And The Dirty Bastards from Italy who nailed their fusion of punk rock and traditional music completely. With their own roots and influences included along with some amazing uilleann piping they are deserved winners of the Best Album spot. Kitchen Implosion join them in what has been a great year for Italian bands. Sure not all of these twenty bands are celtic-punk in the dictionary definition of the phrase but sod that anyway. These are what we liked and they all fit in in some way. Twenty bands from thirteen countries (Italy, England, Sweden, Brittany, Canada, Ireland, USA, Australia, Brazil, Catalonia, Germany, Switzerland and Belguim) which only goes to show the international appeal of the celtic-punk scene these days. A special mention for London Irish band Creeds Cross superb debut album. Only just caught them live and they were awesome so hoping to see much more of them around town in 2015.

As ever we have reviewed some, though not all of these albums, so click (here) after the title and you will be re-directed to our review.

We compiled the ‘Best Of’ lists together from the scraps of paper handed to me by the various admins from the London Celtic Punks facebook page.

1. UNCLE BARD AND THE DIRTY BASTARDS- ‘Get The Folk Out!’ (here)

2. CREEDS CROSS- ‘Gods And Fighting Men (here)

3. ROVERS AHEAD- Always The Sinner, Never The Saint (here)

4. LES RAMONEURS DE MENHIRS- Tan Ar Bobl (here)

5. THE MAHONES- The Hunger And The Fight

6. BLOOD OR WHISKEY- Tell The Truth And Shame The Devil (here)

7. THE ROUGHNECK RIOT- Out Of Anger

8. BASTARD BEARDED IRISHMEN- Rise Of The Bastard (here)

9. JAY WARS- Carry Me Home (here)

10. THE RAMSHACKLE ARMY- Letters from the Road Less Travelled

11. 6’10- The Humble Beginnings Of A Rovin’ Soul (here)

12. LUGH- Quando Os Canecos Batem (here)

13. SIGELPA- TerraMorte (here)

14. KITCHEN IMPLOSION- Pretty Work Brave Boys! (here)

15. THE KILKENNY KNIGHTS- Bradys Pub Tales (here)

16. BEYOND THE FIELDS- The Falcon Lives (here)

17. THE YOUNG DUBLINERS- ‘Nine (here)

18. KELTIKON- Agenbite Of Inwit (here)

19. FM 359- Truth, Love And Liberty (here)

20. THE BLACK TARTAN CLAN – Scotland in Our Hearts

a special special mention for three absolutely brilliant compilation albums too. Can’t really include them in the Best of charts so heres all three in no particular order at all as they are all 11 out of 10!

a class album with 4 songs per band and an absolutely beautifully put together record. THE PORTERS/ THE JUDAS BUNCH/ THE MAHONES/ MALASANERS 4-WAY SPLIT DOUBLE ALBUM- ‘Welcome To The Folk Punk Show’ (2014)  here

a mostly Russian compilation paying tribute to all (lets just face it they are!) our favourite celtic-punk band- ‘Ex-USSR Tribute To The Dropkick Murphys’ (2014)  here

this ought to be the number one album of the year to be honest. a fecking amazing compilation of Indonesian celtic-punk bands.the quality is amazing throughout.absolutely stunning. I cannot recommend enough!! ‘Wind From The Foreign Land- Indonesian Celtic-Punk Compilation’ (2014)  here

TOP FIVE CELTIC PUNK EP’S OF 2015

No question which EP deserved this and Russia’s Middle Class Bastards just blasted us away with their follow up to their 2013 album. Superb use of bagpipes and brass instruments combined with fast but tuneful punk rock. A bit unfortunate for Black Water County who looked nailed on to win this for most of the year with their fantastic 2nd EP. The Breton band The Maggie Whackers released their EP back at the start of the year while The South Sea Ramblers from South Africa literally released theirs just a couple of weeks ago while LQR from Holland slipped theirs out in time for St Patricks Day… ooh err missus! So spread out across the year but these are the ones that left their mark. Looking forward to hearing more from them all and long players must be arriving soon I hope.

1. MIDDLE CLASS BASTARD- Rebel To The Core (here)

2. BLACK WATER COUNTY- Fellowship Of the Craic (here)

3. THE MAGGIE WHACKERS- Naoned Whisky (here)

4. LQR- A Touch Of Liquor (here)

5. SOUTH SHORE RAMBLERS- Bare Knuckle Blackout

TOP FIVE TRAD ALBUMS OF 2014

As the blog is for (mostly) celtic punk so it is that we only review stuff that isn’t celtic punk if we really really (really!!) like it. All these rocked our boat and we loved them all to bits. Hard to decide which order they should go in but this is how we ended up. Turned out to be an all Irish list with I DRAW SLOW from Dublin with beautiful alternative country sounds and both Cork’s THE BUACHAILLS and London’s THE CRAICHEADS going head to head with both bands playing similar styles of music while Irish-American supergroup THE ALT’s debut album was a worthy runner-up to fellow Irish-Americans RUNA’s brillliant fourth album.

1. RUNA- Current Affairs (here)

2. THE ALT- ‘The Alt (here)

3. THE CRAICHEADS- Brewed in London (here) 

3. THE BUACHAILLS- At Your Call (here)

5. I DRAW SLOW- ‘WhiteWave Chapel (here)

BEST CELTIC PUNK WEB-SITE OF 2014

once again there is no question who gets this

CELTIC FOLK PUNK AND MORE

(find it here)

 keeping the whole wide world up to date with what’s going on and who is doing who within celtic punk (and more!) while also supplying us with regular free downloads and free compilations. Waldo you’re great. Keep it up mate!

BEST GIGS

Apart from the ones we put on which were all amazing and showcased some amazing performances from JAY WARS and THE DEAD MAGGIES from Aus, THE GREENLAND WHALEFISHERS from Norway, a couple of benefit gigs for Mad Dog out The Popes (hope youre back on your guitar highkicking soon pal!), BLACK WATER COUNTY played their London debut and went down a fecking storm, me O’s mates STEVE WHITE AND THE PROTEST FAMILY were as superb as ever and released a fantastic album. One of the major highlights was discovering the quintessential London Celtic Punk in ANTO MORRA and we look forward to working with him again in the future. We teamed up with fellow Londoners of Urbankelt and will be doing so again too.

I also saw DAVID ROVICS for the first time, THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG’s amazing 30th anniversary show was incredible, NECK and their sadly ended residency at TChances which had us all pissed on Polish lager on Sunday afternoons for the first 6 months of the year, FLOGGING MOLLY in Reading in June which showed they havent lost a thing and are as great as ever, THE POGUE TRADERS were the best Pogues tribute band I ever seen. Disappointing was missing so many gigs where I just didnt have the cash especially The Pogues various outings. THE STANFIELDS from Canada seemed like a decent bunch of lads but their London gig was a total rip-off. The pre-gig ticket price was £7-50 which more than doubled to £15 on the door on the night. Oi bands watch out for charlaten promoters won’t you? Rebellion music fest brings loads of decent bands over to play but that means that they all end up playing in the same week so I had to forgo THE GO-SET’s return to London. Missed out on THE WOLFE TONES London gigs too due to work. All three of them! THE LAGAN have been brilliant. Far far too many of their gigs to go into detail so we have choosen the whole of St Patricks Weekend as our Number One! With NECK playing three gigs over the weekend and both THE BIBLE CODE SUNDAYS and THE LAGAN playing on the same day as well it seen a clean sweep of all the London bands done. Afterwards sick days were phoned in, headache pills were taken and the best St Patricks in donkeys was had.

Now were just looking forward to catching THE DROPKICK MURPHYS ‘Celtic Invasion ‘ Tour in Dublin and London this year round St Patricks Day.

Sláinte, The London Celtic Punks Crew- 2015

 

Of course all these things are very subjective so don’t be dismayed if your album ain’t here. What appeals to one don’t neccessarily appeal to another. It would be impossible to keep up with the multitude of celtic-punk related releases so these are the best of of what we actually did get to hear. All the various sites in the celtic-punk family had different winners so to see what they thought check out the Best Of lists of the following sites…

CELTIC FOLK PUNK AND MORE

IRISH PUNK

PADDYROCK/GRINNNING BEGGAR

MacSLONS IRISH PUB RADIO

click on the blog logo at the top of the page to find more of this kind of stuff…

NEW SINGLE RELEASE FROM CREEDS CROSS. ‘THIRD LIGHT’ IN AID OF ‘WAR CHILD’.

Regular readers will remember back in June that we reviewed the new album from the latest addition to the London celtic-rock/punk scene, Creeds Cross. We were to put it simply, quite blown away! As good a debut album as you’ll find anywhere. You can read our review of ‘Gods And Fighting Men’ here where you can also find out all about the band, the band members and have a listen to a few songs and even find links to buy/download the album.

Officially released on November 7th ‘ Third Light’ is a harrowing tale of life in the trenches during World War One. The story being that the third man to light a cigarette from the same match would be shot by a sniper. Highlighting the horror of war and the innocent lives it ruins the band have decided to donate all sales of the single to the charity War Child. They work to help improve the lives of children affected by war. They currently work with children affected by war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Syria.

Creeds Cross certainly continue their rise to the top with this number too. Highly charged and emotional lyrics atop a soaring track with all of the bands instruments combining together brilliantly. The best celtic-punk bands continue the celtic tradition of story telling and that is one of the things Creeds Cross excel at.

” First light, a second, then third it’s man down

From an enemy sniper across no mans ground

And the silence that followed, was a deafening sound

And the curse of the Third Light goes on…..”

We’ve been gagging to see if they can deliver the goods live and we’ll get our chance later this year in Camden on November 16. Event page for the gig is here. It’s going to be a corker so see you down the front.

So dig deep Celtic Punkers and get yer money out -its less than a quid!- for a superb track but also for a great charity.

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ALBUM REVIEW: CREEDS CROSS- ‘Gods And Fighting Men’ (2014)‏

Its always great to hear about a new band on the London scene but when that band is super-bloody-fantastic its even better! Creed’s Cross are a relatively new band formed by internationaly celebrated musician Bart Foley. He’s accompanied by some stella fellow performers in Pat McManus of The Mamas Boys and Brian Kelly of The Popes.

Based in the celtic-punk heartlands of North London and hailing from Cork, Dublin, Kerry, Mayo and London these lads are certainly kicking up a storm with their superb debut album ‘Gods And Fighting Men’. Self released on the bands own independent label Fiachra Records the CD itself is a nice wee package that comes with all the lyrics included so for those two reasons alone its well worth purchasing the disc. The name of the band comes from the crossroads from where Bart is from in Ireland and also to symbolise

“that our music welcomes all creeds and colours”

Eleven tracks and just under forty minutes is what you get and its as good a fusion of good old fashioned Irish traditional music and rock/punk/rock’n’roll as you’ll get. Now I’m sure the band won’t mind me saying this but they’re all pretty seasoned muso’s so don’t be coming here if you want your celtic-punk wrapped up with modern influences like a bit of ska here or a bit of dance there as Creeds Cross plough a far more classic route with influences of Irish legends The Horslips to the fore and much more celtic-rock than punk. That does not distract I hope that the band could not cross over into the celtic-punk scene as I am sure they could, and can, hold their own against any of the scene’s finest.

The album begins with the intro titled ‘An Irish Air’ a short slow pipes led piece that soon bounces into ‘The Harvest’ about bringing in the harvest back home. A subject close to every Irish mans heart, unless they come from Dublin. It also rings many a bell to those of us who were taken to Ireland for our summer holidays under the pretense of a holiday only to spend the whole bloody time bailing hay!

A great fiddle led song with a colossal chorus with a shout of “Hay, Hay”, instead perhaps of “Oi!, Oi!”.  Third track is ‘The Irish Band’ perhaps the most punkiest on the album with a great story

“We sang our songs and we played our fiddles,

To London town and the gathering clans,

Both North and South and all in the middle,

will join together for the Irish band”

Being a band made up almost exclusively of emigrants Creeds Cross know what they’re taking about next on ‘One By One’ which talks of that ever present scourge of the Irish, emigration. Betrayed by the politicians at home the rate of emigration from Ireland is again up to new record levels and the parishes of Ireland are emptying of the young once more. The blame lies fair and squarely with the lawmakers who as usual care nothing for the people and are only interested in feathering their own nests. Heartening to see those days could be at an end, with recent election results these charlatans could soon be on the dole themselves. ‘The Sam Maguire Cup’ is a song about the fever that grips Ireland in the run up to the final. The cup is presented to the winners of Ireland’s biggest, but not greatest as that’s the Liam McCarthy Cup, sporting event the All-Ireland Senior Gaelic Football Championship. Being a Tipperary fan its not something I’m very familiar with I must admit… ‘Good Enough’ is a slow song about broken love but with a positive message of reconciliation and coming to terms with what happens and making peace with yourself. The title track ‘Gods And Fighting Men’ is another punky song about drinking it up on a Friday night

“Fridays are for Gods and fighting men”

A great story and clearly sung by Bart with a shitload of gusto. ‘I’m Coming Home’ is the split song to ‘One By One’ with its story of returning home from working away to feed your family. A song that sounds not unlike The Saw Doctors just much much better! The band capture perfectly how it must have felt for the generations who left and were lucky enough to return. Brian Kelly’s banjo playing is top notch and makes a change from the mostly fiddle led songs. ‘The Virgin Mary’ is a droll song about Catholicism and the pressures of being a RC. Growing up is hard when you’re told you’re being watched ALL the time. Great craic this song and told again with great relish by Bart. ‘Half A Chance’ is the story of asking a lass out for the first time. All us Catholic boys remember this with horror… The album finishes with the lovely ballad ‘A Lullabye’ which begins with the piano and is a great way to wind up the album.

An album full to the brim with modern Irish folk and rock anthems that will surely appeal to everyone from trad fans to your absolute most hardcore of celtic-punk rockers. The tunes and the storytelling gel perfectly and are both superb. Feel good music with a message Creeds Cross are not The Pogues or Blood Or Whiskey or The Saw Doctors but a band you can now add to those just mentioned at the top table in Irish music.

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