Far more likely to hand you a pint than plant a glass between your eyes the Dorset Dropkick Murphys, Black Water County, roister rather than riot on Comedies & Tragedies, the crowdfunded follow-up to 2017's Taking Chances.
Boosted by a genuine knack for earworm choruses and hooks the farmhouse Flogging Molly are just as folk as they are punk (and just as pop as they are either of those, come to that); there's no sense at all of pre-fab songs sprinkled with banjo as an afterthought or, worse still, a novelty.
Tracks like 'There Will Be A Day' are basically beefed-up folk songs – tin whistles, timings and all – and when the band's softer side is revealed on the sunny 'A Little Honesty' hundreds of years of British tradition seep inexorably in. 'Mistakes' would slide easily onto a Frank Turner record (and not just because they're singing about tenses) and at the other end of the scale is the pure pop-punk explosion of 'Runaway', but it's where the two sounds charge headlong into each other that the pulse really starts racing – and thankfully this happens a lot. The album opens with a breathless one-two of latest single 'Who Am I Now' and the magnificent title track and ramps up into a sweaty mess on 'Living and Giving', the perfect soundtrack to an impromptu jig-pit.
Granted, some of the songs barely make sense – "never hanging by a tether" sounds like an it's-4am-and-we-need-something-by-sunrise lyric – and sure, in some places Tim Harris and Shannon Byrom's vocals jar against each other rather more than you would hope and expect, but you get the sense that these issues would all come out in the wash when the songs are played live. And you can bet they will be, repeatedly – the band tour often and tour hard. Comedies & Tragedies is an immensely enjoyable listen, in the same way a Ferrari is fun to drive on the A35, but open it up on the Autobahn which is a Black Water County live show to get the full experience.
Words - Joe Ponting
Black Water County official