Straight out of Brooklyn with not a skinny legged bearded hipster in sight comes The Canny Brothers Band playing old school Irish folk with a strong nod to both The Wolfe Tones and The Dubliners and maybe just a little nod to some laid back west coast sounds. The Guinness Situation is the third album from The Canny Brothers and its chockablock full of great folk standards – Drunken Sailor, Spanish Lady, Peggy Gordon and more. I particularly like the versions Celtic Symphony and …..the Devil is Dead. In addition I want to give a shout out to standout original tracks the biographical William O’Conner and Devil’s Bird.
The Canny Brothers will be in Brooklyn way after the skinny legs have shaved and moved to Jersey and if the bros ever grow beard they will Ronnie Drew specials.
I’ve been struggling to write a review of One Drop of Whiskey, the new release by The Canny Brothers Band. It should have been pretty easy, right? 7 piece, Brooklyn based group, playing mostly Irish folk standards along with some originals, with a slight rock influence. But, there was something else there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That was until last night while I got caught in a pissing rain storm as I gave One Drop of Whiskey one more spin on my mp3 player, it came to me- Jimmy Buffett!
Now you might be thinking I’m totally insane for making this comparison. I doubt the bros wear Hawaiian shirts on stage, I’m pretty sure they’d rather pull a nice pint of Guinness then make a Pina Colada, though their skill on the grill are not in doubt. What I am getting at is there is this laid back grove that perminates right through the album – its most obvious on, Óró, Sé do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, with its reggae grove, the funky bass of I’ll Tell Me Ma, and on the title track, but it’s there in every track to some extent in either the music or vocals – even the songs of rebellion and hanging and the like, for this Buffett comes straight to mind. Finally, Irish music you can chill to.
Shite'n'Onions 