These came out in 2005 — or at least that’s when I got ’em. Here’s what I said about them back then (with some minor editing):
Traditional Irish music, filtered through a punk sensibility and topped with vocals from the one and only Shane MacGowan — a guy who makes Bob Dylan sound like a speech therapist. What more could you want? Well, how about the other five discs in the band’s catalogue, which were also reissued in expanded form in Europe?
FIRST RELEASED: 1985 / 1987.
HIGHLIGHTS: The Elvis Costello-produced, swashbucklingly titled Rum Sodomy & The Lash, the band’s second album, features the single Dirty Old Town, the raucous Sickbed of Cuchulainn and the romantic drunkard’s waltz A Pair Of Brown Eyes; the followup If I Should Fall From Grace With God boasts the barnburning Bottle of Smoke and the political statement Birmingham Six, but it will always be best known for the gorgeously dysfunctional Christmas carol Fairytale Of New York.
EXTRAS! EXTRAS! Each disc comes with six bonus cuts from the era — EP and single tracks, live recordings, tunes from previous reissues and compilations — plus an unreleased goodie or two.
