The Dead Flags may or may not be named after the Godspeed Armageddon time classic, but by gum it’s fun to imagine them cavorting around the wilds of Sligo and sacrificing small furry animals at their very own punker apocalypse party. Almost as much fun as their Karl Odlum-produced debut Gentlemen’s Club, a 12-song, 40-minute all singing, all-dancing extravaganza which is rather more considered and controlled than one might expect.
This lot have evidently spent more time with The Beatles than The Dead Kennedys. The tunes range from bespectacled she-seemed-like-such-a-quiet-girl mid-tempo pyromaniacal love stories like ‘Let’s Start A Fire Tonight’ to psychobilly rave-ups like ‘Anymore’ to the Femmesy fantasy sequence ‘Girls’, in which a young scoundrel scrolls through a gallery of past loves while buried between his paramour’s thighs. The effect is akin to FOB with sharper teeth.
Other subject matters under consideration include Manichean heresies, gnostic conspiracies, the spiritual role of artificial intelligence in a material world and the odd stab at post-evolutionary transhumanist theory. Just kidding – the Flags deal almost exclusively in 21st-century 20-something young lust and modern romance tales (sample song titles: ‘Woman!’, ‘Cheating On You’, ‘Oh My Love! Oh My God!’). There’s even a big heartbroken ballad ‘How Long’, which perfectly captures the gobsmacked dismay of the jilted john whose ex has taken up with a pal. Gentlemen’s Club won’t reinvent the wheel, but it will put a smile on your phizzóg.