ENERGY ORCHARD: "Shinola" (Essential)

STRANGE THAT an album so nondescript and dispensable is recorded on a label called Essential.

Shinola is an LP destined for the gift shops at the Cliffs of Moher and for throes of other shops around this fair nation where you can find fine lines of peuter leprehauns, crystal shamrocks and "100% Irish" t-shirts.

An album that typifies everything that is wrong with Irish rock in general, Shinola is a disturbingly benign collection of songs. They're well-performed, finely produced, generally listenable, and overwhelmingly dull. Absolutely nothing here helps to sets Energy Orchard apart from countless young unsigned Irish bands who will remain unsigned until the cows come home - except, of course, the fact that they are signed.

The first half of the album comes across like the Blue Angels getting thrown around in a storm the Stunning brewed up, while the latter half seems blatantly directed at Irish-Americans and Sawdoctors fans. 'The Star of the County Down' is a particularly tiresome flexing of diddly-aye muscles, and the inclusion of live tracks recorded at a gig on St. Patrick's day just reeks of tourism board collusion.

As a friend and colleague noted: "No one needs music like this."

• Tara McCarthy