The Punk of the Irish!
It’s quite interesting to note that Flogging Molly’s copper-coloured lead-singer Dave King, was in fact the lead singer of 80’s glam band Fastway (whose founder member was former Motorhead guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke). Fastway’s biggest success came in 1986 when they wrote the whole soundtrack for the teen horror movie, ‘Trick Or Treat’ - a film about a dead rock star who comes alive through a possessed LP when played backwards, and of course featuring Gene Simmons, and Ozzy Osbourne (who plays a priest who preaches that rock is the Devils music!). It’s therefore good to see Dave King back with Flogging Molly, a band that take the fundamental aspects of the punk ethos that was brought to the forefront by The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, and then mixing in a splash of The Pogues, we get the Celtic flavoured street punk like the Dropkick Murphys. They have had their tunes on a number of films and TV shows including, ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’, ‘Weeds’, ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Bones’.
Released on SideOneDummy Records, ‘Float’ is the band’s fourth album and was recorded in King’s native Ireland as the follow up to 2004’s ‘Within A Mile From Home’ album. We have a happy and vibrant opening in the great, ‘Requiem For A Dying Song’, which is then followed by the fast paced, ‘Paddy’s Lament’ which has echoes of Dropkick Murphys, of which of course the band can’t help but be compared to. The album title song, ‘Float’ slows things down whilst we get another round in with a gentle and acoustic number that is heart-felt and honest.
Things jump back up with ‘You Won’t Make A Fool Out Of Me’ which is a fast paced hyperactive jig of a song, that makes you want to down your ale and grab a woman to bounce around to with. Following this with the paced still unrelenting, the slightly more acoustic punk of, ‘Lightening Storm’ engulfs us, before we settle down to listen more carefully to the poetically inebriated words of a Guinness soaked mind in ‘Punch drunk’. We then start to search our family trees for Irish roots in the heavily traditional feel of the song, ‘Us Of Lesser Gods’ which is a song a little like something Julie Fowlis would come out with, if she weren’t to sing in Scottish Gaelic (please don’t hurt me for suggesting that Scottish and Irish Gaelic are in anyway the same, but, er, to my under educated ears they are…).
‘Between A Man And A Woman’ sounds so much like Chuck Ragan, that I find myself checking his album to see whether this is on there. Of course this is a good thing as the ex-Hot Water Music frontman is a master at this traditionally sounding acoustic music. This leads us nicely to the fun-packed Irish jig of ‘On The Back Of A Broken Dream’ which sounds a little like Foster & Allen when they have won a drinking contest and are celebrating by singing a more contemporary version of their songs sped up! ‘Man With No Country’ shuffles along nicely adding a political message to the whisky, before we have the album closer, ‘The Story So Far’ which compared to the other songs is incredibly slow, and reminds me of something that a bar or club puts on at the end of the night as the last song, whereby people are grabbing anyone still single to snog or dance with as a last ditch act of desperation, and the bar staff clean up tables whilst either wishing they were the other side punch drunk or home in bed with a good man, woman or pet…
Flogging Molly have their own brand of Irish-influenced rock, and they are one of those bands that you will either love or hate. They do have the ability to bring back traditional sounds and tunes and somehow make them sound as cool as they did fifty-plus years ago. ‘Float’ is packed with what you would want from a Flogging Molly album, and just perhaps a little bit more…