FLOGGING MOLLY

“Life is Good”

(Album Review)

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Our new album “Life is Good” is out now! HERE

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Life is Good is the 6^th studio album from Celtic folk-punk outfit Flogging Molly and is, in my view, an absolute return to form. There is an intangible quality to Molly’s music that separates it from its contemporaries. It’s melodic and instantly likeable, but fiercely rebellious; embodying a barely-controlled aggression that permeates the tracks, occasionally tearing free and lashing out with a highly satisfying fury.

2002’s breakout record Drunken Lullabies was a near-perfect expression of that balance between madness and melody. It was raucous and belligerent whilst avoiding the pitfalls of punk cliché into which so many others have fallen. 2011’s Speed of Darkness was, for this writer, a somewhat less successful experiment. It erred too much on the side of caution; it maintained a radio friendly sound whilst eschewing too much of the band’s roots. It lacked the passion of a great Flogging Molly record.

Life is Good suffers not from that condition. It wails. It raises its fist. It continues to embrace its Irishness in a way that captures the lilting sound of the best of Celtic music. At the same time it displays, in all its glory, anti-establishment sensibilities that earned Flogging Molly their loyal following.

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Our new album “Life is Good” is out now! HERE

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The record has a number of high points, the highest being Crushed (Hostile Nations) and Reptiles (We Woke Up), both of which are deeply political, a feeling which pervades much of the album’s material. Welcome to Adamstown might be the album’s low point, being a somewhat derivative song about living in post-industrial Shit-town, Anywhere, USA, a place closing down and decaying after the manufacturing jobs moved offshore. It’s a theme that’s been covered elsewhere more successfully and in this case the track adds nothing to that conversation. Having said that both Adamstown and the record’s other weaker moment, title track Life is Good are still rollicking sing-along style anthemic rousers, it’s just that they lack some of the depth that makes the rest of the record great.

Other notable moments include The Last Serenade (Sailors and Fisherman), a little piece clearly designed to be sung collectively by groups of drunken friends at the end of a bonded evening and The Guns of Jericho which, with its thickly accented vocals and fiddle intro, is so Irish it would be comical if anybody else tried to pull it off. Dave King, however, manages it with style. It’s a tribute to his versatility that the man who made a name for himself as frontman for glam metal outfit Fastway way back in the 80s can so thoroughly and convincingly manifest his Irish pride here.

If you’re not a fan of the genre, this is a piece unlikely to change your mind; such is its unapologetic display of everything that make Flogging Molly one of its most renowned purveyors. If, however, you’re open to a little whiskey-soaked diddly diddly with your punk this record is an excellent example of the genre at its best.

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