Celtic folk punk is, for me, a sort of ambiguous genre. If done well, it\u2019s a thoroughly delightful romp through drinking, music, and being angry at the English. If done badly, it\u2019s the musical equivalent of falling down several flights of stairs<\/p>\n
So. When good, is very good; when bad, it\u2019s not a happy thing. Good thing the Dreadnaughts\u2019 Polka\u2019s Not Dead<\/i> is good. Pretty darn good, in fact. To be fair, however, they\u2019re not purely Celtic. They will steal<\/s> use as an influence anything and anywhere from Ireland to Russia to Klezmer to Viking War Chants. It\u2019s a lot of diversity for a band who, according to their official biography, \u201cbegan to play folk-punk in 2006 with a single goal: to make enough money to cover the cost of shots of Fireball whiskey at Vancouver\u2019s notoriously seedy Ivanhoe hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n
So does it work? In a word, yeah. The musical food processor set on \u201cAggressively Puree\u201d produces a pretty tasty dish; there are moments where the Dreadnaughts come closer to Gogol Bordello (I\u2019m looking at you, \u201cSleep Is For The Weak\u201d) or Balmorhea (\u201cZa Smierc Przyjaciela\u201d) than The Dropkick Murphys. Whether singing about poutine in French or body-slamming the traditional \u201cRandy-Dandy-O,\u201d Polka\u2019s Not Dead<\/i> is filled with energy, life, and fun. And yes, polka never dies; just ask the song \u201cPolka Never Dies,\u201d which I think I will have played loudly on a regular basis to annoy my neighbors.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re into the Gaelic\/world music mosh pit where bands like The Blaggards and The Pogues live, you should really check these guys out. By the time they celebrate cider, women, and song with \u201cWest Country Men,\u201d you\u2019ll be ready to join right in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10649],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46151","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-dreadnoughts","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46151"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}