Wayward tales of love, woe, and everything in between come to life in The Irish Lassies' latest album, Immigration Stories.
The Irish Lassies, a six-piece American Celtic folk band based in Upstate New York, started off as childhood friends. Over time, they took their jam sessions to a higher level, garnering acclaim in their home state and beyond.
Cutting their teeth on a host of traditional Irish songs such as "Leave Her Johnny," their new album -- which released in August of this year -- contains ten original songs, all aiming "to take listeners back to 18th and 19th century America with heartfelt true tales of Irish settlers."
A jaunty mandolin kicks off the album's first track, "Joshua Davis," a nautical ballad based on the true story of a barber who joins the US Navy and is captured by the British around the time of the War of 1812. "I was beaten, robbed and pressed again in Dublin," the band sings with raw emotion of Joshua's trials, "and for eight years I've tried to get back home."
"The Redwood Shepard" skips ahead to the late 19th century, delving into the mind of Californian lumberjack David O'Toole. Plaintative violin accompanies the band's vocals, which describe how the mighty Redwood forests were felled: "Red giants crash deep in the forest… a thousand years, one day to kill." With an air of foreboding, David declares, "the redwood trees will last forever."
"Drums of the Mohawk," a darker tune carried by somber strings, tells the tragic tale of a young man who leaves his bride-to-be behind to fight in the American Revolution. "His lover, oh she cried, when will you come back?" the band sings. The doomed man's response: "Just have to go and give Red Coats thrashings." By the song's end, "the battle raged back and forth on Freeman's farm" and the young soldier takes a mortal wound-- "the fever set in and he closed his eyes."
The final track, "Whitetop Wagon," featuring folk duo Kinnfolk's airy vocals, charts the troubled westward journey of a family of Irish settlers.
"We buried our son at soda springs," the band sings, after the young boy fatally falls from the wagon. The rest of the family makes it to the paradisical land of Oregon, but the father says, "I'd trade it all to get him back/What's the Garden of Eden if loved ones you lack." The song ends the album on a sad yet beautiful note, a reminder that in the lives of Irish immigrants, love and hardship went hand in hand.
Consisting of Henry Smith, (vocals, violin), Peter Smith (vocals, concertina), John Erway (vocals, bass) Riley Keller (guitar, vocals) Scott Smith (vocals, bouzouki), and Caleb Cotter (vocals, banjo, mandolin), The Irish Lassies keep Celtic tradition and earnest storytelling alive. The band can be found performing at Irish festivals, pubs, and breweries all around the greater Upstate New York area.
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