Mad Dog Mcrea have a humungous reputation as a party band and after show revellers but you have to deliver music as well and ‘Almost Home’ definitely hits the spot as the best from them so far.
Sean Lakeman (Seth's brother) has done a fine job producing and the music fairly jumps out at you from the speakers, showing that for all their revelling rep they are a fine set of musicians at heart.
The music touches down in folk, bluegrass, country and even jazz and they manage to avoid any pigeon-holing, transcending the limitations of any one form and making music that is very ‘Mad Dog’.
The opening track blows the cobwebs away with a furious mix of guitars and banjo, driving beat and penny whistle create a massive sound documenting the desperation of that late night rush home from a gig.
The music intensity keeps up on ‘Talking Through The Walls’ with a gypsy fiddle adding a note of melancholy and the flute somehow takes the song into a folk/prog groove about the madman next door.
So far living up to the billing and it continues with the wonderful ‘You Can’t Find Me’ where a bluegrass number takes you into a WW1 tunneller’s nightmare.
‘Devonside’ is the most pure folk with distinctly Celtic harmonies while ‘Whiskey Man’ is a delightful and deeply contemplative song with simple voice and guitar making the world somehow back off and then you get an indefinable little joy with ‘The Juggler’.
Every track is unique, clearly of the same band but their talents are so wide and so involved with the music that what you get is a sense of a gang working their asses off and all pulling in a common direction but all coming from a different skillset.
It is one of those albums that make you want to cue it all up again as soon as it has finished, it just keeps on giving.
Mad Dog Mcrea - "Almost Home" (Official Music Video) from
French Honey Films on
Vimeo.
