Eight years is a long stretch between pints, but Muirsheen Durkin & Friends are back with Bunch Of Bastards, and the Arnsberg crew haven’t softened a bit. Same no-frills Teutonic Celtic punk that made 11 Pints & 3 Shots (2018) such a stomper — pipes up front, Mac Rünker’s sandpaper bark on the mic, and songs built for sticky floors and flying elbows.

Thirteen tracks, about forty-four minutes, and barely a dull second. Originals like Celtic Pride, Green and Honour, South Westfalia, and the title cut Bunch of Bastards do what this band has always done best: shout Westphalian pride through a Celtic filter and dare you not to join in. Riot is their homage to Charlie Harper and the UK Subs — all snarl and spit, no museum polish. Crazy Landlady and Sick Of it all keep the pit moving, while the traditionals (Auld Triangle, Banks Of The Roses, Wayfaring Stranger) get the Muirsheen treatment: rough, loud, and very much alive.

Then there are the covers, and this is where the record earns a proper salute from the SnO desk. Buy Us A Drink is a belter from the late great Aussie band Roaring Jack — still one of the finest Celtic punk outfits ever to come out of the southern hemisphere, and hearing that song get a German sweat-on is a treat. Banned From The Pubs tips the glass to Peter and the Test Tube Babies, UK82 mayhem dragged into the pipe-and-pint universe without losing the grin. Add that UK Subs nod on Riot and you’ve got three covers that aren’t filler; rather pint killers.

Nothing fancy here, and that’s the point. No big production makeover, no sudden detour into folk-pop respectability — just Teutonic Celtic punk the way Muirsheen Durkin & Friends have always played it. Out now on CD and stream (green marbled vinyl lands mid-November), Bunch Of Bastards is exactly what the title promises: a loud, loyal, pint-spilling return from a band that never needed to reinvent the wheel. Raise one for the bastards. We’ve missed them.

https://muirsheen-durkin.de/