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Flogging Molly
Swagger
SideOneDummy
The first full-length from Warped’s most heavily-buzzed new undergrounders is, eh, okay. A lot of comparisons to The Pogues have been made, chiefly because this septet includes an accordion player, but that’s about as far as it goes. While The Pogues were poignant, insightful, beautifully doomed losers, Flogging Molly are, well, fun. There’s no real depth of character here, just some Irish affectations and a lot of romp. Even on ‘The Worst Day Since Yesterday’, maybe the disc’s most morose moment, you can hear the smile – they think it’s clever. And, largely, it is. None of this is to say that Swagger is a bad release; it’s an energetic, slightly ethnic distraction from too many shitty punk bands that all sound the same. Fans of everybody from Squirrel Nut Zippers to Violent Femmes to Blue Meanies might well dig it. But if you’re looking for real tradition, real substance, real last-call epiphany, you’d do better to look elsewhere. Flogging Molly are just goofing on it. They’re doing it pretty well, but they’re doing it just the same.
Ravis Harnell
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