Shane MacGowan And The Popes: “The Snake” (ZTT)

Few artists have had to withstand such a crass concoction of vilification and pity as Shane MacGowan has in recent years. When some pundits aren’t gleefully carving out the gravestone to which they feel his lifestyle entitles them, they’re shedding enough crocodile tears to fill the broad majestic Shannon, sanctimoniously mourning the ‘waste’ of a major talent beneath a haze of hooch, pills and self-destruction.

The portrayal of MacGowan as another doomed beautiful-loser is a very effective way of dismissing not only his work but also the world of which he writes. The subtext is that this stuff about what goes on at the bottom of the great greased pole of life is all very well but isn’t it about time the guy dried out and became a proper writer. If Shane was a hollow mockery of himself towards his latter Pogues days, and at times he most certainly was, it was precisely because he was following the line of thinking which says that he should be responsible and keep the show on the road at all costs. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with sobriety, as long as it’s kept in moderation.

MacGowan’s debut solo album, The Snake, is a triumphantly defiant middle digit to all the insult-hurlers on the ditch. It’s a glorious old curiosity shop, ablaze with the trashy, the elegant, the literate, the dumb, the uproarious and the sad. Shane may spend most of his days peeled on booze and junk but he’s got unerringly clear vision with it comes to his songs and stories. It’s only when you hear the genuine article once again that you realise just how second rate the competition really is. One is lumber, the other is balsa.

There are tracks on The Snake that are destined to become party favourites for years to come. Shane has never lost the knack of writing riotous whoopalongs so primeval they erupt like hot lava in your brain, and there is no shortage of those here. ‘That Woman’s Got Me Drinking’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Handbag’ start out sounding like Pogues-by-numbers but quickly develop a fuck-you! swagger that is completely their own. ‘A Mexican Funeral In Paris’ is the best Sam Peckinpah film ever released on record, ‘The Snake With Eyes Of Garnet’ is a tale of laudanum and poitín consumption filled with both dementia and grandeur, and ‘Donegal Express’ is the ultimate ad for a Bus Eireann day trip (not to mention the first known song to suggest that a visit to Belturbet might actually be fun).

Throughout, The Popes acquit themselves as more than adequate henchmen, though there are moments on some of the subtler tracks when you long for a little of The Pogues’ inimitable dash and dexterity. ‘A Song With No Name’, ‘Aisling’ and ‘Victoria’ are the most conspicuous examples of this absence. Even so, while they may lack in finish, they abound in soul.

The version of ‘Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’ is priceless. A respectfully faithful rendition of the Gerry Rafferty standard, all tasteful whistles and harmonious banjo, it’s only at the very end that you realise what MacGowan is up to, as he garrottes the whole lament with the simple and, in the context, not unreasonable assertion that, “Her father was a right cunt anyway.” With one fell swoop, a millennia of whinging ballads about disapproving Daddies is lain waste.

The Snake is no masterpiece. On occasion, it’s easy to feel that Shane is idling in neutral, opting for the soft safety of rote or cliché, but the truth is that there’s still a hell of a lot of deep, dark spirit left in even one of MacGowan’s clichés. He’s been away for far too long.

So, fax the begrudgers. It’s payback time. This Snake is powerful enough to banish all the St. Patricks from Ireland.

• Liam Fay