December 5, 2014

Craic is an Irish word, an all inclusive word for good times as in “wheres the craic?”, “The craic was mighty!” or “Having the Craic!”. Craic is also the name of a very fine Celtic-punk band from Cleveland, Ohio who bring us their debut full-length, “Amongst the Mischief and Malarkey”. Produced by former Dropkick Murphy, Ryan Foltz, the band is tight and the sound is great – powerful but without losing the bands raw edge. The music of Craic is built on the rawness of the second wave of punk with DKM style gang vocals, layer upon with banjo, tin whistle and fiddle. The closest reference point for comparison is the long departed Nogoodnix.

Track listing and a few song comments:

01 – Hold the Penny – Fast, trashy second wave punk meets tin whistles
02 – Lonesome Lullaby-More American meets Celtic meets punk, again pretty fast
03 – 36 Bombs – About legendary Cleveland Irish gangster Danny Greene and the 36 bombs that tried to kill him, I really need to check out “Kill The Irishman” the movie about his life
04 – Dirty Old Town – Initially I was wondering what the point of covering DOT was until they got all trashy on it after the second verse then I totally got it
05 – Roads Less Traveled
06 – Irish Banshee
07 – Serenity
08 – Marching Orders – Maybe my favorite track on the album – fast, fast, fast
09 – Parallels
10 – Lily & Nolan – A ballad very much in the Irish tradition – beautiful song
11 – Fields of Athenry – A very over done song but this is a fine version

In all, a really strong debut which may have turned me into a Craic addict.