THE RUMJACKS – GANGS OF NEW HOLLAND

This is music to break things to. Music to get drunk to, especially if you like folk, and punk rock, and the two in combination. It’s not particularly original. The Rumjacks’ recipe for Irish stew is mostly meat and potatoes, seasoned with a little Pogues here, some Dropkick Murphys there (although the song Roll Away Alone makes a pretty decent stab at Celtic reggae). The band’s strengths are the sheer bare-knuckled, cauliflower-eared ferocity of their delivery, their tunefulness, and their detailed, arresting lyrics. Their songs would make a fine soundtrack to an afternoon in the Justice & Police Museum: take the stomping Green Ginger Wine, with its evocation of bad old Surry Hills – “Like honey on a toothache, you’ll never be mine /  Tho’ we can dance, b’Jesus, we’ll swing like the razors of Kate Leigh & Tilly Devine.” Or Pinchgut, with its banjo and roaring guitars (“Spare me the floorboards, I’ll dig you a hole, big enough to swallow the moon.”), a battered old mugshot come to life. Bar the Door Casey finds them sober and reflective.
***1/2