Dubliner DAMIEN DEMPSEY'S second album "Seize The Day" (2003) was a runaway success, featuring collaborations with Sinead O'Connor, Morrissey's patronage and a personal invitation from none other than Bob Dylan to go along as his support on tour.
None of which exactly looks bad on the ol' CV, but despite being given the artistic keys to the kingdom so to speak and a rep which means that his third album "Shots" can realistically be described as 'eagerly anticipated', Dempsey has stayed true to his no-holes-barred observations and - despite a bigger production - the gritty pop-cum-reggae sound of his two previous records.
And overall that's no bad thing, because while there's still some of the slightly mawkish forced 'Oirishness' of the two preceding albums here, it largely takes less of a starring role, which along with the tightness of the band's playing and Dempsey's increasingly confident delivery ensures "Shots" is the best album this writer has yet heard.
Plus, Dempsey gets another fundamental exactly right here: he remembers to open and close the album with two excellent tracks. Opener "Sing All Our Cares Away" is very much in line with Dempsey's hard-times-for-would-be-honest-people lyrical skills and when he allies such observations ("Stevie smashed the delf 'cos he can't express himself/ He's consumed by rage like his Father at his age") to a big, yearning chorus and a strong performance from his band he's on a winner.
We'll get the album's fine closing tune in a little while, but first let's explore some of the album's other notable excursions where Dempsey again proves he's coming on in leaps and bounds. For instance on "Not On Your Own Tonight" where the dark, acoustic chords are married to discreetly swelling strings as and when required; or on the equally fine "Cursed With A Brain", where an evocative band sound is married to Damien's resonant, anti-materialistic lyrics ("You have your health and you've a job and a car/ What is it with us, we're always wanting more?") to great effect. Equally good, too, is "Hold Me", where the softer guy inside the tough shell of Dempsey's characterisation struggles to get out ("Girl I've been hurt in the past, cut up/ I find it hard to bring my guard down") while the (dare I say it) Smiths-ish lilt of the music gradually builds into an impressive, neo-orchestral flourish at its' conclusion.
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If he could keep going in this vein for the distance, then "Shots" would be a really great album, but sadly he's still blighted by an apparent duty to play the patriot game on songs like "St.Patrick's Day" and "Choctaw Nation" where - inevitably - the Uileann pipes and references from everything from the North London Irish ghetto of Cricklewood through to the obligatory Black & Tans crop up. Add to this a baffling, spot-the-join reworking of "Colony" (why, Damien, why?) from his debut album and you feel like sitting Dempsey down and saying "Damien, you're not Christy Moore, give it a rest will yer".
Fortunately, on this occasion, these moments make up a smaller percentage of the material on offer, and such unsympathetic feelings are largely banished when Dempsey gets to the album's concluding track "Spraypaint Alley." Perhaps his most well-observed tale to date, it paints a particularly detailed picture of inner city deprivation, squalor and dashed hope in a number of simple observations ("I've a fifteen year-old moustache, I'm so desperate to be a man/ People tell me to shave it off/ If I shave it I'm a boy again") and ends with the oft-used, but totally relevant cliche "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Throw in a restrained band perfomance and you've both the very essence of restrained and perhaps Damien Dempsey's best song to date.
"Shots", then, is a strong album overall, though there are still too many slightly wince-worthy moments (and that scary tendency to rap on "Patience" that blights the credibility of his work) for me to wholeheartedly embrace him. It's not love, as yet, for this writer, but admiration is now coming a lot easier. Keep it up Damien, m'boy.
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