"...the first Tickle Harbour recording which dared to add a horn section to a celtic tune - masterful! ....For those who own any of the previous Tickle Harbour recordings and have danced or reflected through a Newfoundland winter with the ticklers and tinkers in this band, Battery Included will help keep your lights on."

- Len Penton, The Measure


".... it is always said that good things come to those who wait. How true that is with Battery Included... The group has a distinct sound, best described as Newfoundland Irish music. The songs like "Maurice Kelly," "The Banks Of Newfoundland" and "The Valley Of Kilbride" are mainly derived from the Newfoundland tradition, while the tunes like "Teetotalers/Ships are Sailing" are Irish in origin and/or style while possessing a Newfoundland flair. A guest appearance by uilleann piper Paddy Keenan on the album's closing set of reels ("Julia Delaney/Farewell to Erin") helps bring the Irish influence to the fore. If you need an introduction to Newfoundland music, look no further than Tickle Harbour.

- Cliff McGann, Boston Irish Reporter


The best of the small label productions this month comes from Newfoundland’s SingSong records. It’s Battery Included [SingSong 02-50750 (1998)], the second CD from the top local band Tickle Harbour, who play a mixture of Newfoundland music and standard Irish tunes. This disc is a real departure from their first album The Brule Boys in Paris, in several respects. For one, the band’s lineup has almost entirely changed, with only guitarist and arranger Don Walsh and flute and whistle player Gerry Strong remaining in the band’s six-member lineup. For another, the addition of two first-rate vocalists (Vonnie Barron and Fergus O’Byrne) means they’re more than just a tune band nowadays. In fact, Battery Included contains almost as many songs as tune sets, most of them unusual and beautiful Newfoundland ballads. Barron’s versions of "Maurice Kelly" and "The Valley of Kilbride" have the relaxed vocal quality and tempo I associate with the great Newfoundland singers like Anita Best, while her reading of "The Pretty Ploughboy" is more lively; O’Byrne sings a good version of the bittersweet "Banks of Newfoundland," but his triumph is on the quick and humorous "The Warlike Lads of Russia," which chronicles Napoleon’s flight from Moscow in delightfully ungenerous detail. His version of the song comes ultimately from Nic Jones (by way, I suspect, of the Black brothers), and his rollicking hearty chorus of guests features Great Big Sea’s Sean McCann, O’Byrne’s former bandmate Dermot O’Reilly, and his current touring partner Jim Payne. The result is a rare animal indeed: a great singalong that also happens to be a great song.

As for the instrumental side of Tickle Harbour, their new lineup finds them altered but not diminished. In addition to Walsh, Strong and O’Byrne (who plays concertina and bodhrán as well as singing), the new band stars Patrick Moran (of the Punters) on fiddle and Francesca Swann on cello. To this base of flutes, strings, guitar, concertina and drums, they’ve added many sounds offered by top musicians from both Newfoundland and Ireland: uillean piper Paddy Keenan (formerly of the Bothy Band), percussionist Jim Fidler (formerly of Pressure Drop, now the well-regarded leader of his own band), fiddler Seamus Creagh (a former Tickle Harbour member, but better known for his duets with Jackie Daly in the 1970s), melodeon player Frank Maher (a former member of Figgy Duff), guitarist Sandy Morris (who used to play with Newfoundland’s Wonderful Grand Band), and several others. This fills out the arrangements very nicely, and makes them sound like even more of an instrumental powerhouse than they actually are. The addition on two tracks of a brass section of sax and trumpet shows they’re open to experimentation; indeed, their set of three polkas finds them using not only the horns but also the cello and the human voice to add layers of textured harmonies around their tunes — as spirited and contemporary a use of traditional music as anyone could ask for.

- Steve Winick, Dirty Linen