Enter The Haggis-Soapbox Heroes CD Review
Enter the Haggis
Soapbox Heroes
UFO Music UFO 1006
**½
Enter the Haggis bring plenty of bombast and the youthful fervour of energy-driven acts like Nickel Creek or Rascal Flatts to the world of Celtic rock on this earnest fifth release. Based in Toronto, the quintet hurtle headlong at their all-original material, with a strong Irish musical core placed against contemporary country, pop balladry and broader world influences. It makes for a potent combination, and the accumulated effect of guitars, fiddle, piano, bagpipes, whistle, harmonica, mandolin, bass and percussion, plus vocals which are often impassioned to the point of a kind of naivety, can be overpowering. There’s an argument for the entire CD being over-produced by the renowned Neil Dorfsman, but more responsible for the album’s overblown presentation are the players themselves, operating at full throttle from start to finish. It seems that they have garnered an impressive live reputation, and it often sounds as though that extra edge which can lift a live performance into the stratosphere has been misguidedly strived for here in the studio. Lyrically they favour a narrative style, with an unapologetic strand of social awareness running through the centre of it, but there’s never quite the snap or the poeticism inherent in the writing to make the sentiments memorable. SOAPBOX HEROES is a spirited creation with the power to get toes tapping, but after a couple of spins its intensity becomes a little too oppressive for comfort. Helen Carney