ska-punk legends return with new album
Produced by Ted Hutt and recorded between Hollywood Sound and L.A.’s Cello Studios, the third album from ska-punk stalwarts Flogging Molly is apparently a ‘back to roots’ album for front man Dave King. King started his musical life alongside Motorhead guitarist Eddie Clarke as a member of Fastway, playing venues such as New York’s Madison Square Gardens and the Great Western Forum in L.A. Things didn’t exactly go as planned for Dave with Fastway, because he soon found himself scrubbing the toilets in the very venues he’d just played – not exactly the sort of history I’d want to re-visit, whether as the inspiration for an album or otherwise. I’m sure that the past he’s referring to is in fact the traditional Irish folk music of his youth, not the nights spent elbow-deep in the U-bend.
Of Flogging Molly’s diverse sound, Dave says that “If it didn't have mandolin, accordion, fiddle and whistle, it would be punk-rock, and if it didn't have guitar, bass and drums, it would be traditional Irish music” – as a neat package summary, I can’t really say any better than that. Although obvious, the comparisons to the Pogues and Dropkick Murphy’s are relevant. With upbeat folk merging with a fervid punk desire that sounds like you’ve stumbled into some back-water Irish bar where the band have followed their Guinness with speed chasers.
It is clear that Irish blood runs deep in King’s veins – he quaintly writes the lyrics to all of his songs on a typewriter manufactured in 1916; the year of the Irish uprising. His unabashed pride in his Irish heritage also shines through in the lyrical content of several of the songs, for example ‘To Youth (My Sweet Roisin Dubh)’ – roisin dubh is Irish for black rose, the traditional name for Ireland. In ‘Tobacco Island’ he amusingly sings of Oliver Cromwell shipping the Irish to Barbados in the 17th Century to work as slaves on sugar plantations – of all the things to hold a grudge over for 400 years… Flogging Molly aren’t afraid to tackle more contemporary political issues either, as demonstrated in ‘Screaming At The Wailing Wall’; a scathing assault on George Dubyah’s ‘warmongering in the name of god’. Both the song and the lyrics are fine in isolation, but the happy-go-lucky jive just doesn’t fit prose like “I’ll liberate your peoples’ fate spoke the burning Bush, but the song of beasts’ growl with oil soaked teeth”. The album is in part dedicated to the memory of Joe Strummer (‘The Seven Deadly Sins’) and Johnny Cash, who’s lamented in ‘Don’t Let Me Die Wandering’; a song about living life to the full – true Man In Black style.
Considering the band already contains a fulsome 7 members, it is surprising that Flogging Molly felt the need to employ a more extensive list of guest musicians than you’ll find on your average rap album (although Dr. Dre doesn’t feature, curiously); but the excellent duet with singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams on the country-tinged ‘Factory Girls’ proves without doubt that the logic was sound.
I’m not really a fan of ska/folk-punk, but despite myself I have to admit that you can’t help but feel uplifted and enlivened when listening to ‘Within A Mile Of Home’, with the damn Oirish once again showing that they are the true lifeblood of the party.