From county Cavan in the Republic of Ireland, Sons of Southern Ulster put out a great album ‘Foundry Folksongs’, reviewed last year but actually released back in 2016. They since released another album ‘Sinners and Lost Souls‘ in 2020.
This most recent release however is a remix of four tracks from ‘Sinners…’ remixed by Pete Briquette (of Boomtown Rats fame) and it is a corker of an EP.
Pete has retooled the tracks to quite excellent effect – the Sons’ songs generally recall the world of the 70s, and also recall some echoes of David Keenan’s excellent book ‘For the Good Times’…
There is a real rush to these tracks, combining punk riffs with adept social commentary, and Briquette’s take mainly turns up a few knobs and accentuates the devil may care attitude and broad accented vocals…
The songwriting combo of Justin Kelly and David Meagher are just genius, best music from Ireland since Whipping Boy (give or take Cathal Coughlan’s excellent recent work).
The first track ‘Polaris’ is the most restrained, starts with electronic beats but soon expands into more of a ballad.
The other three tracks are completely mental – ‘Live In The Past’ is a rant against the future, with a massive chorus, riffs, the lot – “they say I say I live the past, strong fags and plenty of them”… “Sat in the pub with parents on doleday”…”I smelt the piss, I slipped in the vomit”… visceral indeed…
Likewise ‘Stubby Yellow Fingers’ is a Stooges-esque hymn to substance abuse, and troubled youth, and black and white TV… ‘Fear my Scorn’ is if anything more nightmarish, railing against gangsters, the guitars just right – “fucking eejits” – total rock and roll, one of the best tracks BM has heard for quite some time – it invokes the wrath of God, well of course it does… and a great chorus!
A cracking release from a combo who really need to visit Scotland – we’d love you!