Flogging Molly, “Within A Mile of Home”

Laddies and lassies! Tip your glasses and be merry! Throw an arm

around your buddy or a fist at your enemy and check out Flogging

Molly’s new collection of high-energy drunk punk.

“Within a Mile of Home” is a fun album full of highs and lows

with lots of anger and expression. With “Home,” there is barely a

sober moment. The album opens up with great political anger on the

song “Screaming at the Wailing Wall” – “I’ll liberate your people’s

fate/ spoke the Burnin’ Bush/ but the song of beasts growl with

oil-soaked teeth.” Molly’s biography is an anthem on the song “The

Seven Deadly Sins,” We’re seven drunken pirates/ we’re the seven

deadly sins. “Home” is an eclectic collection featuring banjos,

fiddles, tin whistles, pipes and mandolins that all contribute to

the band’s originality in a usually pigeonholed punk sound.

Listeners might think that they are from Ireland, but

surprisingly the band hails from Los Angeles. “Whistle in the Wind”

is a great Celtic sing-along, and “Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon”

captures the band’s drunk screams and sober tears. Politics appear

again on “The Light of a Fading Star,” Ah when will this war be

over/ and the madness leave the air. One highlight track is the

rainy, somber and sober “The Spoken Wheel,” which confesses the

band’s sadness through the sound of an acoustic guitar. Molly’s

sound can become repetitive, but a cool acoustic song featuring the

gritty vocals of Lucinda Williams remedies that with lyrics

expressing a sort of female liberation. For seven punks raised on

Johnny Cash and the Clash, “Home” is eclectic mix that anyone can

drink to.