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Jackdaw:
Triple Crown
As a general rule, we music critics a jaded, cynical group dont tend to enjoy anything that smacks of that most hated of all music genres: world music. What exactly qualifies something as world music is something of a mystery. Are the Pogues world music? How about the Chieftans? Not the Cranberries, right? Pretty much anything derived from the folk music of a foreign, preferably exotic, place generally can be considered world music. Fair enough you might say, but where does that leave Irish music? Ireland is certainly foreign, but certainly not that exotic, especially when many of these Irish-style bands are from the US. One of these bands that is Irish-influenced but from the US is the Buffalo band Jackdaw. Moving away from the more Celtic punk sound that was so prominent on their first albums, Triple Crown finds the band experimenting with different sounds. Sometimes adding or subtracting sounds works, deepening and enriching a good song. Sometimes it doesnt work. The problem here seems to be that there is no real plan on Triple Crown. Ideas are tried and discarded. Some particularly bad ideas, like putting the raspiest singer through a Strokes-esque filter over top of some poppy Celtic-punk, are discarded after two songs never to return again. Other ideas, far more successful in their application, include adding a country element to some of the later songs. This softens up their edges a little, and the songs end up being superb. One of the best songs on the record is the secret track (what exactly is the point of secret tracks on CDs?), and it is worth searching for. Overall, if you skip the first two tracks, you will find an interesting and rewarding record that is far from qualifying as world music. Whatever that means.
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