Best Served Loud-Liv

In 1991, veteran Irish punk rockers Stiff Little Fingers played a St. Patrick's Day show at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland. The gig went exceptionally well, and it became a tradition, with SLF playing the venue on March 17 every year. Best Served Loud documents the band's 25th St. Patrick's Day show at Barrowland in 2016, and it finds them giving the audience what they came for while still doing things their own way. As one might imagine, the set list is heavy on the group's first three studio albums (1979's Inflammable Material, 1980's Nobody's Heroes, and 1981's Go for It), and the punters who came to hear the "hits" were clearly not disappointed. At the same time, SLF also fold in some of the better cuts from their more recent albums, and numbers like "Guilty as Sin," "Strummerville," and "My Dark Places" sound solid in this context. Lead singer and guitarist Jake Burns is the only original member of Stiff Little Fingers on board for Best Served Loud, but the 2016 lineup -- Ian McCallum on rhythm guitar, Ali McMordie on bass, and Steve Grantley on drums -- knows how to replicate the energy and attack of the band in their prime without sounding as if they're slavishly copying every detail of the old records. In short, this is a band that can honor past glories without sounding as if they're trapped within their history, and Best Served Loud confirms Stiff Little Fingers are still committed to their ideals and just as certainly know how give their audience the show they deserve. ~ Mark Deming