ALBUM REVIEW: T.C.COSTELLO- ‘100 YEARS AGO’ (2015)

Some have called it folk-punk with an archaic edge…

If T.C.Costello was a drink he’d be equal parts punk rock and folk music, a bit like a Whiskey Mac perhaps! Originally from South Carolina in the United States this is his fourth record release and for certain its his most ambitious. Throughout the album runs the theme of, the only song not written by T.C, the old sea chanty ‘100 Years Ago’.

whiskey is his spirit animal…

T.C.Costello is you see one of them really annoying people who can play a multitude of instruments and can seemingly turn his hand to just about anything. For those of us with feet for hands we really hate that! The album features everything from your normal celtic-punk gear such as acoustic guitar, Irish Bouzouki, tin-whistles and accordion but doesn’t just end there as there’s also the sounds of horn pipes, a Chinese instrument called a Hulusi that sounds like bagpipes and even a khaen, an ancient bamboo instrument from Laos. The music itself has the vibe of celtic-punk, no suprise what with T.C Irish-American roots, but is more reminiscent of pirate punk due to the subject matter. These genre’s are basically the same anyway and even if you don’t agree with that they definitly overlap. The songs are all told with humour and and in a story-telling style. The music is the background to the words and with the clear and crisp vocals you can make out every word T.C tells. As for comparisons the only ones I can think of are a maybe piratey Tom Waits / Nick Cave perhaps but with a twisted Irish/ Balkan thing going on. He also reminds me a lot of a London band called Folk Grinder who are well worth checking out. All the songs on ‘100 Years Ago’ are self-penned except for the title track and with eighteen tracks it flies by, with no dragging or filler, super quick at just over thirty five minutes. A lovely wee album and I have already checked out his other albums. This is not an album to jump around to but any lovers of celtic-punk should be well use to moments like these. Sometimes the point of the music is the words in the song. As the left-wing band Easterhouse once said “music is not enough…”

As already mentioned it’s virtually all original songs of classic Irish-American folk music but with punk intensity and with a cheeky side. Often humorous and sometimes political but always fun and in T.C’s own words the songs “without exception go well with beer…”

(To play the whole album through click play below)

Contact T.C.Costello

Facebook  Bandcamp  Tumbler  ReverbNation  Twitter  YouTube

Buy The Album

From T.C.