Title: Airbags not included: You must take this ride
Product review: The disk opens with a warning. A few lines of traditional Irish ballad worries seem to promise a nice bit of clomping about, but then "The Sickbed of Cuchulain" launches into a hell for leather death march through every drunkard's bacchanal ever. If, by the end of the song, you're not drunk or reaching for a bottle, you're a Puritan or deaf. However, "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash," thanks to Declan McManus's production, is an *album,* not a song or two.This disk functions as a whole entity. We have all the major themes of life represented, as well as updatings of all the traditional ballad themes. From the man of adventure to the expatriot's return to the defeated love, the record moves through phases of life, changing tempo and going from laughter to sentiment and back. "If I Should Fall from Grace," the next album The Pogues put out, is fine, but "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" is perfect.
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