Shane MacGowan & The Popes
The Snake

THE REVIEW

It's hard to go wrong, to be misled or misunderstood when it comes to Shane MacGowan. Take, for example, this Serpent, unmistakable right from the cover that shows our man nailed to a crucifix. Take the song that opens this work, the violent and sacred The Church Of The Holy Spook. Take the first verses (according to Nick Cave, Shane is the absolute best at writing opening lines) and you immediately understand that there is no middle ground:

My Daddy was a sinner, but my mother was a saintly person
But I ruined my life by drinking, bad wives, taking pills and cursing
Rock'n'Roll you crucified me, left me all alone
I never should have turned my back on the old folks back at home..

"The Snake" is Shane's first work after he was expelled from the Pogues because he was an alcoholic and drug addict, and it is a very important work, vigorous, energetic, and moving as well as the tangible and irrefutable proof that the mind behind the Pogues was him.
The songs on this album are populated by whores, drunks, junkies, fiery loves, ruined or shattered beauties, Mexican funerals full of zombies, romantic obsessions, opiate euphoria, and a lot of gin.
It's hard to go wrong when you listen to a MacGowan album. His songs taste of truth; his songs are the truth of a life always lived on the edge, a life smoked, drunk, drugged, commanded, and condemned by passion and vice.
Shane nailed by his own rock'n'roll, Shane crucified by the beauty that he managed to ruin and let die.
It's impossible to go wrong, a Shane album is always a sacrifice, a sacrifice of love.