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Though these Dubliners somewhat amusingly claim to merge rock (or rather, whatever wimpy music silly Irish people erroneously classify as rock) with “hip hop lyrical flow,” their self-titled Phonogenic catapulted up to No. 19 on the Heatseekers chart last week; the £6.99 iTunes price listed on their MySpace page was presumably not a major factor, but every little thing counts. Clearly they are following in Celtic soul-brother footsteps previously laid down by Thin Lizzy and Black 47 and House of Pain and people like that. “Think U2 versus Timbaland, Van Morrison remixed by Teddy Riley,” their bio on MySpace says, and their fans contribute comments written in cryptic Dublin hip-hop lingo: “Alri lads wats d story??,” goes one. “Was doin me business midterm test d oda day nd der was a question on break-even analises r sumfin nd wen i just saw breakeven ur song was n me head n i cudn concintrate, twas gas, i distracted nearly every1 else 2, am auctaly listening ta breakeven now lol!”
The band’s page also links to a video on YouTube that’s “no longer available in [my] country,” which would seem to defeat its promotional purpose. But the site does have a live video for “We Cry” that features the obviously very polite lads on a rooftop, with the drummer beating on a wooden box between his legs; pretty sure the Violent Femmes used to do stuff like that. And whaddaya know… the song sounds exactly like Everlast! Well-meaning over-weeningness about a “poor girl living in a rich world” until she gets pregnant, and another woman who’s got an “ambition to become a politician,” the better to change this man’s man’s man’s world–and you can tell the baseball-capped-and-polo-shirted singer with his hands in his pockets the whole time thinks of himself as very intense and emotional. Which presumably is why “together we cry.”
The Script [MySpace]
“We Cry” [YouTube]
