THE POGUES
THE BBC SESSIONS 1984-86
JE
RHINO
★★★☆
Originally released in August for Record Store Day, this expanded 23-song CD edition is a complete document of The Pogues’ first six Radio 1 sessions. A riotous Greenland Whale Fisheries shows that they were always explosive, barely altering in the bristling energy of three further Rum, Sodomy & The Lash-era sessions, even more ferocious than the studio versions. Four songs for Janice Long previewing If I Should Fall From Grace With God are less intense, but it’s all a welcome reminder of the days before they settled for relatively cosy nostalgia shows.