L.A. Beat

Canadian Celtic-punk icons the Mahones are back, striking while the iron is hot. They had a lot of critical and commercial success with their last CD “Black Irish,” and do their best to better that on their latest release “Angels and Devils.”
  They come out flying with the intense “Shakespeare Road,” featuring some incendiary fiddle playing and wild tin whistle.

 It perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the CD— boundless punk energy mixed just about perfectly with traditional instrumentation, fine tuned to the modern era.
 Lyrically, “Angels and Devils is vintage Mahones”— lots of singing about drinking whiskey and life as an Irish punk rocker as on the title track, which is a tribute to  both of these things.

 There are also some really pretty medleys of traditional Irish tunes, indelibly stamped with the Mahones own brand of whiskey drenched punk rock.
 They have some high powered friends on the CD like The Dropkick Murphys’ Ken Casey, who snarls his way through “Spanish Lady,” and Irish punk forbearers Stiff Little Fingers’ Jake Burns adds extra lead guitar on “Angels and Devils” and “The Waiting.”

While it is all good, “The Waiting ” is a spine tingling mid-tempo rocker featuring layers of instrumentation and a catchy, mournful melody.
 “King of Copenhagen” is a tin whistle powered,  catchy three chord rocker which reminds me of the Romantics’ “What I Like About You.”

Blue Rodeo’s Greg Keelor adds his voice and  guitar to Shakespeare Road and the United Steelworkers of Montreal’s Felicity Hamer adds her beautiful voice to “Angel’s Without Wings/ Merry Christmas Baby,” one of the few slower tracks on the CD, which has got to be an ode to frontman Finny McConnell’s  lovely and talented wife Katie (who I believe is also Greg Keelor‘s cousin), who adds wailing accordion throughout the CD.
 The Brains’ Rene D La Muerte and Colin Irvine also add electric guitar a dark energy to “Whiskey  Train,” another frenetic ode to the joys of whiskey.

They go political for a moment on the energetic punk rocker “ The Revolution Starts Now.”
 They wind things down  a couple of covers — a hot version of Husker Dü‘s “Makes No Sense at All,” then end with a sizzling version of  Stiff Little Fingers’  “Tin Soldiers.”

Like good whiskey, the Mahones get better with age. They are  23 years old, having formed in 1990) and are just starting to hit their stride.