Gaelic Storm's Greatest Hits 'Full Irish' Touches on Beer, Whiskey, and Donkeys Drinking Whiskey

Society always celebrates the records that top the Billboard 200 album chart. Back of The Billboards is a Music Times weekly segment that looks at the opposite end: the new record that finished closest to the back of the Billboard 200 for the previous week. We hope to give a fighting chance to the bands you haven't heard of.

Week of 08/08/2014
WHO: Gaelic Storm
WHAT: Full Irish: The Best of Gaelic Storm 2004-2014
SPOT: 169

The last new spot on the Billboard charts is often home to new compilations from established performers, but this week's "greatest hits" collection might introduce a new band to many readers. We're at an advantage, having lived in the Columbus (Ohio) area for a significant portion of our lives, and have had the chance to get out to the nearby Dublin (Ohio) Irish Festival and check out this week's showcase, Gaelic Storm.

Storm is perhaps the most preeminent of modern traditional Celtic groups, taking a slightly more conservative route to recording while still touching upon the many subject matters popularized by more mainstream performers like Flogging Molly: beer, whiskey and Irish girls for example (minus the politics in between).

Full Irish features a blend of Irish traditional songs, like "Whiskey in The Jar," but the album comes alive with tongue-in-cheek numbers such as "Raised on Black and Tans" and the satirical (possibly) "The Night I Punched Russell Crowe." The headliner has to be the mini-epic "Darcy's Donkey" about a mule that somehow drinks itself into racing contention and then death.

Listeners will find all the fiddles and Uillean pipes they expect, but the use of traditional Gaelic percussion like the bodhrán makes all the difference.