If I Should Fall From Grace With God

Till now, Pogues' compliments have invariably centred on Shane MacGowan's singular songwriting. The group's erratic performances which could descend into some ramshackle acoustic heart of darkness meant the praise wasn't always extended to his fellows. You didn't have to believe traditional music should be 'cultured' into virtuoso chamber-music to feel the Pogues were too regularly wont to under-sell themselves as an equivalent to the racket on the last bus route.

So If I Fall From Grace… is The Pogues' essential watershed album. Not just because it will sell in barrow-loads to Barrowlands and elsewhere but because it irrevocably establishes their music credentials, comprising as it does a forcefully convincing statement that The Pogues' eclectic, populist, roots'n'roll angle on Irish music has as much to recommend it as the previous strategies of the Bothy Band, De Danann, Moving Hearts, Clannad et al.

One reason is Steve Lillywhite's production. Given his association with U2 and other post-punk guitar bands like Siouxsie and The Banshees, Lillywhite might seem to have been chosen more for the value of his name than for his musical inclinations - but few recall his involvement with Johnny Thunders' classic So Alone album. Here he crisply profiles The Pogues without redress to any electronic sorcery, proving that The Pogues' all-acoustic barrage can carry as much explosive power as any high-tech alternative.

If I Should Fall… is also a forcible reminder that The Pogues are a Camden, London-Irish band, residents of that section of North London where the Irish mingle with Greeks, Rastas and a host of other minorities. For this is Irish music viewed through the prism of a North London sensibility that includes bluegrass, bluebeat, Cajun, rockabilly, punk, ska, Greek, pirate radio, Madness, the 3 Mustaphas, Tom Waits, the John Barry 7 and whatever else you might hear wafting on the summer breeze any weekend around Camden Lock.

So you get the sublime stew of their spaghetti country'n'western, Latin, Irish and all kinds of everything 'Fiesta' while 'Turkish Song Of The Damned' definitely tends to the bazaar. As for the Instrumental 'Metropolis', it's The Pogues' own acoustic answer to sampling, a 'Dragnet' thriller let loose on the heels of a fox-chase of jigs and reels.

Other members also get their share of the spotlight. Jem Finer emerges as the instrumental expert and MacGowan's occasional sidekick, Terry Woods, contributes 'Streets of Sorrow', while Philip Chevron's writer's block is triumphantly smashed by 'Thousands Are Sailing', a darkly anthemic meditation on Irish migration to America, both ancient and modern, that could be son of 'Faithful Departed'.

Yet while the music is extrovertly eclectic, Shane MacGowan's concerns on 'If I Should Fall…' are more Irish and introverted. Except for 'Fiesta' and the swaggering 'Bottle Of Smoke', the rake's asleep and consumed by uneasy dreams. Here be demands. "Every night they march out of that hole in the wall" on 'Sit Down By The Fire' and the same imitations of morality seen through a dark and distressful glass glimmer through 'Lullaby of London', 'Turkish Song Of The Damned' and the title track. Shane ain't cheerful, betimes, but his artistic feat is to enter and escape from areas where other writers invariably collapse into maudlin self-pity.

Of course, there's the magnificently multi-layered 'Fairytale Of New York', a perfect balance of economy and imaginative insinuation, one of those magical records that you can home in on from a multitude of angles, all of which are valid. Myself, I'm wondering how many Americans will hear it as George Jones and Tammy Wynette's version of 'Street Hassle', as Steve Lillywhite finally gets to play Phil Spector to his own wife. A passing George Byrne chips in with Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley enacting an Irish version of 'West Side Story' but then 'Fairytale… ' is one of those elite records with a thousand resonances that deserves a thousand words to itself.

Then Shane rescues the Irish country song from mildewed sentiment on 'Broad Majestic Shannon' and the only reservation is the point on 'Birmingham 6' where he equates those prisoners' justified cause with the eight IRA commandos, arguably hoist on their own petard at Loughgall, and forgetting the ninth innocent victim who got caught in the cross-fire.

But then I would, and will, say that, that detail aside, the triumph of If I Should Fall From Grace is that it opens up a multitude of possibilities for The Pogues who can't any longer be viewed as a hectic, eccentric diversion and intermission during a lazy period in British pop.

Quite clearly, The Pogues must now be viewed as a potential first division force for the Nineties.