Enter the Haggis - Soapbox Heroes
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CD Details
Artist: Enter the HaggisEdition: Music CD
Published: 2006-08-31
CD Release Date: 2007-01-08
Music Label: United For Opportunity
Soundtracks:
- Lancaster Gate
- One Last Drink
- New Monthly Flavour
- The Apothecary
- Cynical
- The Barfly
- No More Stones
- Perfect Song
- Marti's Last Stand
- Long Way Home
Music reviews of Soapbox Heroes
Music Review: One of their best.
Rating: 4 Stars
Enter the Haggis, Soapbox Heroes (UFO Music, 2006)
The mighty Haggis' fourth full-length studio album has dropped, and a fine, fine disc it is indeed. You need this one.
It opens up with "Lancaster Gate," the kind of [undeservedly censored] that makes the Celtic kids go insane, and it's a great one. It's also a wonderful cognate, conscious or no, of Marillion's "White Feather" (start singing during the keyboard break, and you'll see what I mean). If it's not conscious, given the outspoken antiwar stances of both bands, it's a big coincidence.
Then, it's just over the top. Enter the Haggis have a history of writing and/or performing really, really good songs-- "Where Will You Go," "The Mexican Scotsman," "Star," "Andromeda," "Lanigan's Ball," "Another Round," and so on and so forth-- but they blow every one of them away with "One Last Drink." This is the song this band were born to perform. Bouncy, catchy, pulling in influences from what seems like every type of music imaginable (most notably Latin percussion, absent from the rest of their oeuvre but perfect here), with great flair and boundless enthusiasm. It ranks with the best singles of the decade, and is worth the price of admission by itself.
The album continues on strongly, if not quite as strongly. The band are getting further away from their Celtic roots, for the most part, and while the influence is still there and obvious, these are standard, if exceptionally well-done, rock and roll pieces with the band's trademark "what are you on about now?" lyrical befuddlement. "New Monthly Flavour," "The Apothecary," "Cynical," "The Barfly," and "No More Stones" all stand up well to repeated listening. "The Apothecary" and "The Barfly" are both exceptional-- the former because it's probably the farthest they've strayed from their roots and is still a stunning piece of work, and the latter because it snaps right back to Celtic traditionalism, and like many of the best Haggis tunes, wouldn't sound out of place in an evening of traditional folksongs. It's one that grows on you; give it twenty or thirty spins, it'll become one of your favorites here. "Perfect Song" and the album's closer, "Long Way Home," are both calmer tracks that end the album on an almost downbeat note, or would were it not for "Marti's Last Stand" between them. This one marks the return of Craig Downie to lead vocal duties, and a long overdue return it is. His gravelly tenor and wicked sense of humor have been missed. The latter is not much in evidence with this one, an antiwar track that continues the band's tradition of taking a political stand and having the artistic sensibilities to actually get the point across without beating the listener over the head with it (and this puts them in a very small amount of company), but does it in a way that's still straightforward, almost bitter. That might strike a jarring chord with some folks. Not me. And I say this as someone who generally kicks antiwar-activist songs, even by bands I like, to the curb without ever thinking about them again.
This is a wonderful album. Pick it up. Catch the band on tour; they're also possessed of some of the highest energy, most fun live performances I've ever been lucky enough to see. Get yourself Haggis-ized. ****
Description of Soapbox Heroes
Produced by 4-time Grammy winner Neil Dorfsman (Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Sting, Dire Straits), Soapbox Heroes, continues to establish Enter The Haggis as possessing tremendous musical flexibility while not abandoning their respect for the traditional Celtic genre. Having developed a rabid fan-base in North America from non-stop touring, Soapbox Heroes is widely anticipated, and should build on recent successes like performing on A&E?s Breakfast for the Arts, and frequent airings on PBS (Out of Ireland; "ETH Live at Lanigan?s Ball" TV special).Folk CDs
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