Viva Dead Ponies
(28/100 Greatest Irish Albums)

By all accounts Cathal Coughlan in person is a lovely, agreeable guy — not at all the kind of bloke you would expect to get on stage in a Barcelona shirt in Milan, immediately after Barcelona had beaten Sampdoria in the European Cup Final, and then shout the following to the already enraged Italian audience: “Fuck your traitor Pope”. But in 1992, with 1990’s Viva Dead Ponies on the shelves, this was how Fatima Mansions won friends and influenced people. Viva Dead Ponies was angry, bitter and impeccably tuneful; It was as if, dissonant and ruthless as the songs got, Coughlan’s resonant, rich voice and gift for melody stopped the beauty being squeezed from ‘Chemical Cosh’, ‘Pack of Lies’, ‘You’re A Rose’; even ‘Viva Dead Ponies’ itself. “Do you know how Jesus feels / When he’s behind the sportscar wheel / And the windscreen glass is all gummed with blood”. I’m not the first to say this, but: top blasphemy!