Float
Side One Dummy
3/4/2008
“I’m a ripe old age, just doin’ the best I can,” sings Dave King in the title track of Flogging Molly’s new album. Closer to fifty than forty, King still knows how to write, play, and sing rock songs. Flogging Molly’s sound is crisp as ever, the lyrics are still poignant, and the Irishness just as Irish as ever. Filled with traditional rhythms and instruments, swirled together with electric guitar and hard rock drum lines, each song is invigorating in the way that only punk songs can be. The sound does appear to be a bit cleaner than in previous albums, the four years of working together since the last album definitely shows. They key transitions and rhythm transitions come off perfectly.
Highlights of Float include “Paddy’s Lament,” an unexpected rocker seemingly celebrating the end of hostilities in Northern Ireland, and “Lightning Storm,” a poetic sentiment about our own freedoms at home that comes with a warning. “On the Back of a Broken Dream” is the highlight of the album. It does the best job of expressing the overall theme of the record, that is to leave dead things in the past and move on to better things. Let bygones be bygones.
The last song, “The Story So Far,” is a bit weak. Much slower and than the rest of the album, it just doesn’t seem to be a fitting way to end it. Other than that, the only problem with the album is its very consistency. Each song, with the exception of the last one, is patently Flogging Molly. Flogging Molly seems to be concentrating on getting better at doing what they do rather than try to do something completely new.
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