DANCEHALL SWEETHEARTS

With "Dancehall Sweethearts", Horslips toned down the celtic element...the tracks were still virtually all if not all traditional in origin, but dressed up for the late 20th century to such an extent that for most of the disk they could pass for any quality band of that era from any corner of the Anglophone world.

This "dumbing down" worked wonders about half the time, such as in "Stars", "We Bring the Summer with Us", and especially the bluesy prog of "Mad Pat", which sounds eerily like early Genesis in its quieter moments. Then of course there is the fairly recognizable corker "King of the fairies", oft covered but rarely with this much panache and amplification, and the brief lovely ballad "The Best Years of my Life". OK, so they can't completely de-celtify any more than they can be de-mystified. One's DNA doesn't lie, and Horslips are an honest bunch. However, the less said about the clumsiness of some of the other material, particularly the opening 2 numbers, the better.

A discussion of the best material from this band rarely includes this uneven third album and, while it won't be the sweetheart of your collection, it has enough highlights to be worth an occasional tick on your dance card.