The Mahones – The Very Best: 25 Years Of Irish Punk

Veteran Canadian Irish punk rock band, The Mahones, will be releasing their greatest hits record, The Very Best: 25 Years Of Irish Punk, On August 26th. The band has re-recorded some of their best loved songs for an album that encompasses a quarter of a century making their own brand of celtic influenced punk rock. The Mahones formed on St. Patrick’s Day back in 1990, and have been working on their own brand of Irish punk ever since, with a working class ethic and a love of classic punk, Finny McConnell formed the band to combine his love of punk rock and his Irish culture to create what has become one of the best loved bands of this genre.

 

The bagpipe introduction of Scruffy’s Intro sets the celtic tone for the album before we head into A Great Night On The Lash and from this point on you know you’re in for a stagger down booze soaked road. This is a whistle stop tour of the best of The Mahones, and if you are a fan of them, or indeed have any fondness for the likes of The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys or, fellow Canadian celtic punks, The Real McKenzies, then this is an album that you’ll want to investigate. In addition to the re-recordings of seventeen of their finest songs there are also excellent cover versions of tracks by two legendary Irish Punk bands, Teenage Kicks by The Undertones and Alternative Ulster by Stiff Little Fingers. Alongside the revisions of these two Irish punk classics, there is also a cover of Rancid‘s Last One To Die, and the album ends with a live version, of what is probably the most famous Irish song of all time, The Wild Rover.

 

This is The Mahones twelfth studio album, and it’s a testament to their self belief, or possibly their stubbornness, that after twenty five years they are still relentlessly touring and recording their own brand of celtic influenced punk rock, the album veers between gentler folk punk stylings and a full blooded punk rock, but all the while wearing it’s Irish roots firmly, and proudly, on their collective sleeves.

 

TheVery Best: 25 Years Of Irish Punk can be pre-ordered directly from The Mahones here

 

You can visit the Sailor’s Grave Records website here