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The Men They Couldn't Hang
Bury Met
May 3, 2008


THE Men They Couldn't hang have been blasting out their politically-powered punk-folk with a smile on their collective face for around 25 years now.

Often unfairly described as a second-rate Pogues, the London collective still clearly enjoy what they do as songs from as far back as debut single The Green Fields of France still sound fresh and impassioned.

Singer Phil Odgers and guitarists Paul Simmonds and Stefan Cush pepper each song with varying degrees of banter and eventually throw the whole thing open to audience requests.

Previous to this though, we've had the anti-fascist power pop of Shirt of Blue, the murderous swagger of Going Back To Coventry, the storming Ironmasters, the Napoleonic War-inspired almost-hit The Colours and the folky sea shanty of Smugglers.

There's also some excellent new stuff, particularly the moving Heartbreak Park.

The only disappointment was the lack of Barrett's Privateers, but it's inclusion at the end would have meant the dropping of The Green Fields of France and that would have been plain wrong.

Hard to think that not so long ago major labels would actually take a risk on politically-inspired bands such as TMTCH.

2:56pm Friday 9th May 2008

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