Dublin’s finest guitar pop quartet are on something of a roll these days; two US coast-to- coast tours over the last year or so have widened their audience considerably, winning influential friends along the way.
Their first album to receive an international release, Play This Intimately… which was recorded at Ray Davies’ legendary Konk studios in London, finds Thomas Walsh & Co hitting something of a creative peak. It’s certainly their most stylistically diverse album to date, though familiar touchstones abound.
Opener ‘Kicking And Screaming’ is instantly recognisable as a Pugwash creation – a fast-paced. guitar-driven thing with an insistent groove, hooks aplenty, melodic twists and unexpected chord changes. True, there are more than a few nods to The Monkees’ ‘I’m Not Your Stepping Stone' in the ascending vocal part but hey, (hey) that’s allowed! More irresistible, ‘Lucky In Every Way’ is an effervescently jangly love song with sumptuous harmonies, while the strangely titled ‘Feed His Heart With Coal’ leans more towards pastoral psychedelia.
While it would be an exaggeration to suggest that Walsh has mellowed with middle-age there are nevertheless more love songs and slow-burners here than on previous outings. One such gem is the mellifluous and achingly gorgeous ‘Just So You Know’, one of Pugwash’s finest tunes to date, with a terrific guitar solo to boot. Elsewhere, a Bossa Nova rhythm and a warm, breezy, almost Sergio Mendes-like melody underpins ‘Clouds’. Meanwhile, ‘All The Way From Love’ boasts a Phil Spector-ish drum intro and a Roy Orbison vocal melody. ‘The Fool I Had Become’ features introspective lyrics and a lovely string arrangement and ‘You Could Always Cry’ offers a Beatles-ish tune over a country shuffle. A treat from beginning to end.