Straddling the uneasy divide between The Pogues, The Levellers, The Chieftans and the Dropkick Murphys is Los Angeles’ Flogging Molly. And whilst not as frenetically punky as their press release suggests, they do have the kind of raw and boundless energy traditionally asscociated with a bar-room brawl. Which is appropriate, as this is the perfect music by which to brawl (or music to watch brawls by, if you’re any kind of coward like me). Dissolute, merry, frisky, feverish and stampeding, the Molly’s new album is as ribald and as eager as a rambling Shane McGowan story and as lustful as a pair of Kylie Minogue’s knickers.
One big melting pot of mandolins, accordions, fiddles, whistles, guitars, drums, washboards, banjos, bodhrans, Uillean pipes, tin whistles, bazoukis and spoons, ‘Within A Mile From Home’ courts traditional Irish music rather like cows court cheese. It’s a pirate thing, a shanty thing, and with enough swords to the ceiling to sink a battle ship. Dublin born Dave King leads his six-strong lusty clan of outlaws through a rousing 15-song collection that is seldom short of melodies, anachronisms, political tirades, characters, issues, laments, and celebrations. ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ heaves and gyrates with a chorus of Mary Celeste proportions and ‘Light Of A Fading Start’ is as dramatic, addictive and as sweet as any ‘Moon’ shaped Waterboys epic.
It’s an album of tragedies, triumphs and tributes with the ghosts of Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash never far from the glass from which this bright and reviving record pours. It’s a little like life itself: there’s wit, wisdom, wretchedness and wonder in equal measures.
What’s it sound like? Like the very last thing you heard before the hangover set in, and not for the faint hearted.