At the time of Heartworm’s release, Fearghal McKee described his group “as a doggedly Irish boot in the face of the insubstantial bullshit they call Britpop.” And it’s true, there was little room for irony or frivolity on this most heartfelt and passionate of albums.
McKee himself, a charismatic front-man noted for his chaotic live performances, had a deft, idiosyncratic lyrical touch that fused with his bandmates’ emotionally-charged soundscapes to awesome effect. ‘We Don’t Need Nobody Else’, with its celebrated “They built portholes for Bono so he could look out over the sea” line, was a defiant hymn to togetherness in the face of adversity that engaged the listener on both an intellectual and visceral level - a neat conjuring trick that Whipping Boy were to make something of a speciality.
‘When We Were Young’, meanwhile, was a glorious ode to adolescent rites of passage.
Heartworm’s true masterpiece, though, was ‘Twinkle’; rising and falling, teetering and swooping in the manner of Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’, it was a shockingly intense paean to the agony and ecstasy (well, mostly agony) of romance that resonated in the same manner as ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
Sadly, Whipping Boy’s post-Heartworm trajectory was an all-too familiar tale of record-company intransigence, unfulfilled potential and premature burnout. Still, few bands ever burn as brightly as McKee and co. did during their brief but spellbinding heyday.