Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly: Publocked
IT'S about time someone came along and took the almighty piss out of Irish balladeering - this debut album by the hairy old Brit-hater, for example, is absolutely ripe for parody. O'Reilly professes to preserve those uniquely Irish values of "drinkin', spittin', fightin', pukin', hatin' the Brits and incest", but his rebel yell won't find much favour in the brave new Ireland of juice bars and designer lager. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought songs like The Craic We Had The Day We Died For Ireland, Spit At The Brits and The Ballad Of Jaysus Christ were clever caricatures of traditional Irish tunesmithery, but obviously they're just a load of old ballads sung by a beer-gutted, plainly inbred old codger who wouldn't know irony if it kicked down his front door and arrested his entire family - what? It really is a parody? Ahem, of course, I knew that all along!
- Kevin Courtney
Led Zeppelin: Latter Days - The Best Of Led Zeppelin Volume 2 (Atlantic)
It's an undisputed historical fact that Led Zep rocked harder than anyone else, but there's evidence to show that the tough nuts of 1970s rock could often go all soft and girlie without warning. This second Best Of collection kicks off with The Song Remains The Same, on which Jimmy Page descends into prog-rock guitar-plinking, and Robert Plant sings in a horrible, helium-filled falsetto. Luckily, the band found their missing balls on Physical Graffiti, so Kashmir and Trampled Underfoot are testosterone-fuelled, chest-beating returns to glory. Achilles Last Stand and Nobody's Fault But Mine, from 1976's Presence, are pointless exercises in instrumental histrionics, while All My Love and In The Evening are faded, slightly flabby swansongs.
- Kevin Courtney