Island
1990
Hell's Ditch
About This Album
After the embattled recording of the Pogues' Peace and Love, with Shane MacGowan clearly at odds with his bandmates and their musical direction while contributing little in the way of new songs, Hell's Ditch seemed at once like a step forward and a step back for the group. While Peace and Love suggested the Pogues had grown weary of the hot-rodded Celtic sounds that had been their trademark, Hell's Ditch found the band back in more familiar territory and sounding much refreshed; if there wasn't anything as manic as the high points of Rum Sodomy & the Lash or If I Should Fall from Grace with God, these sessions reveal the Pogues had found their feet and were sounding like a band again, and while a few of MacGowan's songs lead them through his fascination with Asian and Latin accents, the musicians were able to fuse them with their own trademark style rather than being subsumed by them; the Pogues rarely sounded as graceful or a comfortable as they do on Hell's Ditch. However, MacGowan's songwriting still hadn't regained the fire and acidity that made the group's first three albums so powerful, and Terry Woods and Jem Finer don't quite pick up the slack.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9 and 10)

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