Tupelo - Push On

Their 2011 debut Dirty Money introduced Tupelo as purveyors of a heady brew of rootsy organic styles – blending the Irish folk and ballad tradition with the broad sweep of Americana. With Joe Chester at the console the follow-up continues in a similar fashion, albeit with greater focus and higher production values.

Kicking off with the stomping ‘Old Country’ – which recalls Steve Earle’s Pogues-like ‘Copperhead Road’ – they continue with the equally rollicking, ‘Ballerina’s Call’, all flailing fiddles and plucked banjos. ‘The Shifting Ground’ is more straightforwardly Irish, while ambitious ballad ‘Roisin’s Land’, which name-checks Dublin icons such as Larkin, Behan and Lynott, is the kind of song Luke Kelly might have sung in his heyday.

Elsewhere, ‘When The Night Falls’ starts out as a bluegrass slowburner before igniting into a full fledged rocker, while songs such as ‘When The Cockerel Crows’ and ‘Yesterday’s News’ showcase a gentler side. The closing title-track suffers from a somewhat awkward arrangement with too many musical ideas crammed into its four minutes. However, it’s the only miscue on an otherwise fine collection.