Trouble In The Land

ON PAPER, Black 47 could've saved Irish rock 'n' roll. A mouthy, unrepentantly Republican NY-based combo with the eclectic sensibilities of Fishbone, the rebel zeal of Dexy's or Little Steven and a fired up frontman in the form of Wexford expatriate patriot Larry Kirwan, they should've been an Irish (ish) export to rival Pierce or The Pogues.

So how come Ireland never gave a fig for them (Kirwan himself hits the bullseye in 'Those Saints': "So we go to Ireland, sing about Bobby Sands/But they think we're just a crowd of dumb yanks")? Well, it could be something to do with the fact that while Black 47's patented rumpus might rock the grog-houses of the Bronx, when trapped in the amber of vinyl or CD, it frequently sounds awkward and misplaced.

And now, perhaps sensing that the old hardline agenda looks increasingly obsolete in the face of the many 21st century complexities which convolute the concept of Irish culture, let alone nationalism, Kirwan has thankfully sicced his dogma in the direction of a much more clear and present imperialist than Blighty - his adopted father, Uncle Sam. The title tune bears this out, with its snapshots of Village idiots absconding to Northern Idaho to join the Aryan Nationalists. Elsewhere, 'Fallin' Off The Edge Of America' benefits from a similar sense of crisis - whimsy just doesn't suit this lot. Case in point: the cringeworthy 'Bodhrans On The Brain' and 'I Got Laid On James Joyce's Grave' which draw on that stagiest aspect of the exile condition, the "Look Ma, no more Catholic Guilt!" syndrome.

Verse aside, Black 47's arrangements are occasionally ostentatious - 'Them Saints' mixes Rico-like trombone with New Orleans funeral moves, bluebeat beats and Irish pipes in the first 16 bars alone. Here's a superior bar-band, but a bar-band nonetheless, one that might be well advised to trim those grating uilleann frills and brush up on its rhythm method.

Like fellow Wexfordians Roche and Turner, Kirwan best expresses the universal through the personal: 'Tramp's Heartbreak' (named after an interminable and bone-straight stretch of the New Ross road), is one of the best things here, while the gutsy ballad 'Blood Is Thicker Than Water', with a vocal worthy of Phil Chevron, hints at a fierce literacy based on emotion rather than ideology. More material of this calibre, and we'd be within spitting distance of a Ghostown or a Searching For The Young Soul Rebels. 'Til then . . .