Authenticity is a tricky subject in music. This is particularly the case if you’re a young Dublin band dipping your toe into the muddy waters of country rock. Then again, let us remember: Gram Parsons had a trust-fund. Mick Jagger is not from the deep south. Young Bob Dylan was not a share-cropper turned drifter. Lily Allen speaks like the queen. Johnny Cash never killed a man in Reno. The Band were Canadians. John Lennon was not a working class hero (in class war terms he was petty bourgeoisie). Nick Cave is Australian. And lives in a nice house in Brighton.
So beyond the notion of authenticity what have we got? Well we have stuff that’s either good or not so good – for htat is all that really matters in the end. On The Last Tycoon’s debut album they sing about brewing moonshine, hobo-living and jaded drunken infidelities and betrayals in a way that belies their years and presumably their personal experience as children of boom-time Ireland (hopefully their depression-era outlook has prepared them for the bust). But at its best the record rings strong and true, largely because they seem so unambiguously committed to the twanging, harmony-laden genre they’ve adopted. Drawing from the same well as The Band, Neil Young and the Gram Parson-era Byrds, they croon in deep baritone voices, pummel piano keys in a honky tonk fashion, harmonise beautifully, deliver conversational call and response hooks, and twang out well composed guitar and banjo lines.
They do so with often quite thrilling effect, especially on the quartet of songs that begin the album (particularly on ‘Not at All’ and ‘The Dry Law’). Towards the second half, the quality of song-writing dips a bit, but it’s a pretty cool debut record nonetheless. And finally, the raucous banjo-laden hidden track is really worth waiting for...