Irish Examiner (USA) review

Our debut album has been included in the best Irish albums of 2008 in American newspaper The Irish Examiner. Full review:

Music, like life in general, must evolve if it is to flourish and Irish traditional music is no different to any other genre. So it was that Planxty gave purists palpations even as they breathed life into a dying genre, while The Pogues induced kiniptic fits in many traditionalists two decades later, yet goodness knows how many young people they inspired to follow in their steps. Essentially the brainchild of Allen Blighe, The Spooks’ may not have earned the right to be counted among such names just yet, but this is as vital and progressive an Irish traditional album as there has been in the past decade, overflowing with ideas and experimental in a manner that few have ever been brave enough or - crucially - talented enough to take on. Fusing elements of trad, folk, psychedelic and full-on rock, the band has succeeded in creating an album that almost perfectly captures the Ireland of today, which struggles to define itself, clutching desperately to its past even as it embraces a future that appears startlingly different. It is dark, it is challenging, it is teeming with innovation and guile, but most of all, it is a thing of utter beauty that borders on the visionary.