The Dublin quartet had a No.1 with this album on home turf, where they’re verging on festival headliners. But then the Celts have always had a penchant for the kind of gritty, air-punching guitar anthems that The Riptide Movement provide.
That said, big, broad, bouncing tunes such as current single All Works Out and You And I have universal shoutalong appeal.
The words ‘blue collar’ are often mentioned in association with this band, and there’s a strong Springsteenian element of proletarian struggle. Frontman Mal Tuohy mentions someone called Mary (Brooce’s perennial fictional paramour) in Across The Water, and in GLOR, bemoans ‘another generation left on the heap’.
It can’t fail to quicken your pulse, and, although the juggernaut tempo gets a little too one-paced after a while (even the slow-burning Sycamore Tree sounds like a song waiting to explode into a big, booming chorus) they fare so well in their natural habitat, why bother to look elsewhere?/o:p
