Every year we have been doing this has got better and better for celtic-punk releases. As happy as we are that this is so it also means that we just cannot keep up with everything out there. We haven’t had the chance to review everything we received or heard so here is Part 2 of our 2016 Round Up where we catch up with some of the releases that we missed first time round. Here at 30492- LONDON CELTIC PUNKS blog we much prefer to do really detailed reviews but it has been impossible to keep up so here’s a few quick ones just to catch up and get 2016 out of the way. Each and every one are worthy of your time so go ahead and check them out. Last week we featured releases from the America’s (here) so this time we will try to fit in the entire rest of the world taking in Ireland, Indonesia, Germany, France and good auld Australia!
KORRIGAN’S CELTIC ROCK- ‘Tournée Générale!’ EP (Bandcamp)
There is quite a strong and vibrant celtic-punk scene happening in France at the moment and by France I mean France and not Brittany which as you should know is a completely different country! One of these bands are Korrigan’s Celtic Rock who were formed in 2007 in Franche-Comté in eastern France and released their debut EP, Tournée Générale!, earlier this year. They take their name from the mythical creatures who were opposed to Christianity when the Apostles came to convert Brittany. The EP kicks off with a rocking start with tin whistle that AC/DC would be proud of. Next up is ‘Hypocrisie’ with more of a ska beat and the bombarde is introduced. I love the sound of this instrument and will be familiar to fans of the Breton legends Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs. They add bagpipes too into ‘Putain De…’ and this is my favourite track of the EP. The title track ends the EP and is straight up celtic-punk rock. A quarter of a hour well spent. These guys cover all the angles and we are destined to hear much more from them in 2017.
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MICK FLANNERY- ‘I Own You’ LP (iTunes TowerRecords)
Mick Flannery comes from county Cork in the south of Ireland and funnily enough the artist he reminds me of the most is also from Cork, Cathal Coughlan of the excellent Microdisney/Fatima Mansions. This is Mick’s fifth album and the first I’ve heard properly. There may not be much here for the traditional celtic-punk fan except that if you love good music then you will also love this. From what I have read this album is much darker than his previous releases and the excellent Tom Wait-esque title track is based on the idea of class inequality and told as a poor man breaking into a rich man’s house. Dark and foreboding and downright bloody brilliant!
“Thought you heard something on the way home, was that a rustle, was that my belly rumblin?”
Elements of rap and dance music alongside the dark folk and even darker pop here and the songwriting is compelling and worthy of hearing just on it’s own. On ‘Cameo’ Mick’s famous introspection comes out.
“But if I’m so happy/ why do I lie awake at night?/ Why am I angry all the time?”
Though often found with an electric guitar its still very much based on folk melodies and the comparison to Bob Dylan and his change to electric guitar himself is not so odd.
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ACROSS THE BORDER- ‘Calling 999’ EP (Bandcamp)
TENHOLES- ‘Loyalty’ (Juno)
Formed in 2004 in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta Tenholes are a working class Oi! band with celtic music influences. Loyalty is their second album and their best yet. ten songs and thirty-five minutes of punk rock’n’roll from the streets that reminds me of those first couple of Flatfoot 56 albums for energy. An absolute stunner of an album. Great production and comes bursting out the speakers at you from Track One. We have featured Indonesian bands several times before when we reviewed Dirty Glass (here), the great Indonesian celtic-punk compilation Wind From The Foreign Land (here) and the review of The Cloves And The Tobacco last album (here) so go there to find out more about this fantastic scene. So much to recommend here but for certain if you favour the Dropkicks/Flatfoot then this album is for you. I give you a guarantee you WILL love it! You can hear plenty of music at their Facebook page under the Band Profile tab including some songs from Loyalty. Anthems for the working class with stories of urban life, stories about them and us!
KING OF THE TRAVELLERS- ‘Pros & Cons’ (Soundcloud)
The third release from Fremantle seven-piece King of the Travellers. Blending elements of folk, punk, ska and gypsy music to create a hoe-down of epic proportions! With instruments as diverse as the French horn and clarinet they are not your run-of-the-mill folk punk band but there experimentation does remind me of fellow Aussies the Dead Maggies even if their music aint too similar. With a reputation as a raucous live music act how well did they manage to transfer their sound to disc? Well the answer is pretty damn well. First track ‘Another Day’ has brass and a catchy ska-ish beat to it and kicks off these six songs in style. They speed it up for ‘Travel Away’ and then slow it down for ‘First Thought’ and again its all catchy as hell with the many instruments blending very well together thanks to the spotless production. Gypsy/Eastern Europe flavours the next song ‘Curly’ and on ‘Trenches’ the mando is back in charge for this anti-war song which sounds to me like something Stiff Records may have come out back in the day.
THE RAMSHACKLE ARMY- ‘Whitewashed Graves’ (Bandcamp)
And our final review of 2016 is also one of the best we reviewed and no surprises that it’s another Australian release! Just released earlier this month this is the first new record from The Ramshackle Army since the beginning of 2014 but they have certainly been busy if not recording then touring right across the globe! The band began in the pubs and bars of their home town Melbourne but The Ramshackle Army have gone on to become one of the leading lights in the Australian celtic-punk scene and in a scene that is chock-a-block with great bands then that ought to be recommendation enough. Hampered by line up changes they have now got a settled team so lets hope it leads to a new album soon. Here we get six songs and just under twenty minutes of high tempo, catchy as feck traditional celtic-punk. The standout track gotta be the single ‘Foreign Soil’ but it could easily have been any of them such is the quality of this fine EP.“Imprisoned by our plight and desperate acts faith,
They enter battles in our name and battle cry our pain,
Just keep me sane and welcome my escape”
Yeah I know we are hardwired to like ANYTHING that comes out of Boston but this is some killer street punk right enough. Only founded earlier this year Pint Killers feature ex-members of Nowhere USA, Dot Rats, Third Knuckle, The Struggle and the Pug Uglies. “Boston Brewed Punk Drinking Songs And Anthems” they call it and fair enough that’s exactly what you get. Their shared Irish ancestry looms large over everything they do in this four track EP about celebration, drinking, friendship, and brotherhood. The songs flash by in… well a flash of only eight minutes. Fists in the air and heads down working class punk rock, or blue collar as the Yanks prefer to put it. All the songs burst with energy but it’s the longest track ‘Around The Hood’, all of two and a half minutes!, that tick’s all the boxes for me. It may not have bagpipes but so what! And what a great name too…
The Muckers are coming at you from Atlanta city in Georgia in the deep south of America. The city rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a major city and later on in the decades following the Civil Rights Movement, during which the city earned a reputation as too busy to hate for it’s progressive views compared to other cities in the deep south
We have been long time fans of Texan band Nowherebound and while they may not be a celtic-punk band, or even a folk-punk band, but they are simply fantastic so deserve their spot here. If you can imagine a fast and heavy punk rock band that somehow manages to squeeze enough folk melodies into their songs then that’s them. A folk band in all but their music! Coming out of the same camp as punk bands like Social Distortion, Rancid, and Gaslight Anthem but with their cap tipped firmly in the direction of the Murphys or The Pogues. Much more straight up punk rock then their previous releases have been they toured Europe again in 2016, for the umpteenth time, but unfortunately have not made it to Blighty yet. From hard rock in-yer-face to pop punk melodies to raise-your-glass-and-sing-along-anthems Nowherebound that hit you in both the heart and the head.
One of the better known of the North American celtic-punk bands Hoist The Colors come from the urban metropolis Los Angeles. They play a blend of punk rock, trad Irish, Americana and bluegrass that is as original as the city they call home. Now this is one album I would have loved to have gone into real detail about but it only landed in LCP Towers a few days ago so I am having to write this on just a handful of listens. And my first impression is the same as my tenth. It’s a fecking masterpiece! A wonderful LP that really shows the depth of the scene and the willingness to push the boundaries of what is celtic-punk. From first track ‘Little Rebel’ right through to ‘Something More Than This’ their is not a single bad track on Mourners. The title track was the first song released from the album and came with a superb video. Excellent use of the mandolin and the punchy punk rock keeps the toes a tapping.
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