Bad Haggis, Tempest, Sliotar, The Pogues, even The Immaculate Fools, and others. The Town Pants fall very nicely in that category and remind strongly of all the aforegoing blent with Horslips, String Driven Thing, and perhaps another ensemble or two.
They meld an Elizabethan Anglo folk feeling into their Irish wont, then infuse a generous rock element for a result that makes you want to dance, shout, drink, laugh, love, and think...but mostly raise a grinning ruckus.
The lads know their instruments well, and Kyle Taylor is a demon on the fiddle, but when everyone kicks into overdrive, which they do many times, the melee turns incandescent. Ah, but here's a kick an' a half fer ya: they cover speed metal gods Iron Maiden'sRun for the Hills in a cloverfield rendition!! Yee-haw, but that there's my kinda eclecticism, Seamus!
Bawdy, ribald, maverick, and as talented as any three other such bands, the Pants have worked through four previous CDs to arrive at this festive, arse shakin', effervescent collection of serially inspiring earthy songs fraught with passion, cynicism, iconoclasm, and, well, you know the Irish: we loves us our liquor we does and thus never forgets the raising of the wrist, y'all.
Trains not Taken has the hip ring of Sniff 'N The Tears as well, polished and urban-hip but underscored with a timeless knowingness that chooses to remain mortal and in the blood of life…but dancing through it all despite. And if you've ever had a night where you woke up and drank 'a hot mug of butter / And spread some coffee on [your] toast', then you know precisely where these lads hail from and have sufficient cause to sing along with them that Death Feels Like Me Today. I've certainly been there and wish I'd'a had this disc for the morning after pick-me-up; I would've been dancing a jig instead of swearing for the 9,458th time that I'd never do that again…just before returning to the scene of the crime and ordering another pint, hoping that The Town Pants would be in again in the evening to heat up the pub on a chill night.
A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
by Mark S. Tucker
(progdawg@hotmail.com).
