Bad Shepherds - Mud, Blood and Beer

by Fiona Hutchings

published: 2 / 9 / 2013

Label: Monsoon Music
Format: CD

First-rate combination of covers including tracks by Madness and the Stranglers and for the first time also original material on third album from Adrian Edmondson's folk punks, the Bad Shepherds

Review

To me Adrian Edmondson will always be a Neanderthal punk who likes headbutting things.Even though it has been more than 30 years since he debuted the iconic and ever anarchic Vivian in 'The Young Ones', for many of us that image has stuck. The idea of him forming a folk-punk bad after accidentally buying a mandolin and learning to play a few chords actually makes perfect sense. Along with Troy Donockley and Andy Dinan, the Bad Shepherds have been reinterpreting everything from traditional reels to ska classics for five years now. This, their third album, is the first to feature original material alongside classic tracks from Madness and the Stranglers among others. Edmondson himself says, "We've been together for five years now. I think we get better every year...This is our third album and is the first to include our own material. We're obviously known for our radical rearrangements of other people's songs, but now we have tasted the forbidden fruit we realise that we are indeed naked... and we like it." What else is there to do but strip off and join them then? The album opens with the band's take on 'Our House' by Madness. As a huge fan of that particular band, I was slightly apprehensive in case they had wrecked it but I need not have worried. The verses have a wonderful sense of lurking menace adding a quite sinister feel to the lyrics ,and the chorus spirals off into a wonderfully fiddletastic jig. 'No More Heroes' takes on a distinctly wistful air, raw anger being replaced by contemplation. The Fun Boy Three's debut single 'The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum' manages to be even more melancholic. The title track is a homage to all the festivals the band have played at. 'Off to the Beer Tent' builds to a whirling jig and allows Dinan to fully showcase his All-Ireland Fiddle Champion skills. Other tracks take the work of Messrs Costello, Dury and Byrne, putting the Bad Shepherds spin on them and breathe new life into them. 'Road to Nowhere' is a real highlight. For folk punk many tracks might be less raucous than expected, but, if the ethos of punk really was to eschew the perceived excess of mainstream music, then the Bad Shepherds fulfill their brief perfectly.

Track Listing:-

1 Our House
2 No More Heroes
3 The Lunatics Have Taken over the Asylum
4 Going Underground
5 What a Waste
6 Gary Gilmore's Eyes
7 Shipbuilding
8 Road to Nowhere
9 Mud, Blood & Beer
10 Off to the Beer Tent