The Mary Wallopers - Paddywhackery [Indie Exclusive]

The Mary Wallopers came out of Dundalk playing Irish folk songs with the volume and the attitude of a punk band, and they have spent the years since proving that is not a novelty. Paddywhackery is their third album and the one where the political edge that always ran under the drinking songs comes fully to the front.

The title is a joke with teeth. Paddywhackery is the word for stage-Irish cliche, the shamrock-and-shillelagh version of the country sold back to tourists, and the record spends its length refusing it. "Crowns Of England" and "Landlord's Demise" are unambiguous about where the band stand. "Workers Song" carries the Ewan MacColl lineage the group have never hidden. Against that, "The Big Mixer" and "Kit Kat Club" are pure craic, the kind of songs that turn their live shows into something closer to a riot than a folk gig. Charles and Andrew Hendy trade vocals throughout with Sean McKenna filling in the banjo and harmonies.

Very few bands can put a rebel song and a filthy singalong on the same side and make both land. This one can.

Indie exclusive pressing in a gatefold sleeve.