BUY THE VINYL HERE
When The Pogues first emerged onto the bleak musical landscape with 1984’s thrilling Red Roses for Me, the group could barely have imagined that their clattering marriage of Celtic melodrama and punk energy would give birth to a whole new musical subculture. Not just that, but an increasingly popular subculture as well. Going Out In Style, the latest album from Boston’s Dropkick Murphys (featuring an appearance from none other than Bruce Springsteen), entered the US Billboard Top 200 album chart’s top five, while there is every chance that Speed of Darkness, the fifth studio effort from LA’s Flogging Molly, will debut in the same chart at number one.
It ought to be said that a lot has come out in the wash since the day of The Pogues, to the extent that Celtic-tinged punk – Sham Rock, you might call it – might well stand as the most reactionary and creatively uninventive of all of music’s modern sub-genres. Gone are protest songs about the Birmingham Six and threats to “scare the Camden Palace poofs”, while in their place stand homilies about brotherhood and other notions of blue-collar bonhomie. Even so, the lack of a cutting edge doesn’t itself mean that such songs aren’t lacking in charm, and each one of the 12 compositions that makes up Speed of Darkness does feature a tune that the listener can whistle. – BBC
OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:
Blouse Shadow/Nights and Day
Boxcutter Dissolve
Death Cab for Cutie Codes & Keys
Dog Faced Hermans Those Deep Buds
Warren Haynes Man in Motion
My Morning Jacket Circuital
Ozzy Osbourne Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne Diary of a Madman
Jello Biafra & the Guantanomo School of Medicine Enhanced Methods of Questioning
Alex Turner Submarine (Original Songs)
