Whipping Boy Heartworm

Heartworm [is] lyrically brave and musically deft. It cuts through awkward territory to glean something spectacular.

Grian Chatten, Fontaines D.C

In May 1996, Needle Mythology founder Pete Paphides, who at that point was writing for Time Out, saw Whipping Boy play at late lamented Astoria in London “It was one of the most exhilarating gigs I’ve ever seen in my life. And, as it happens, one of the most heartbreaking ones. Whipping Boy’s second album Heartworm had been out a few months now, just enough to have allowed a deep obsession to take root. It was a record I evangelised about to anyone who was willing to listen. More so for the fact that in 1996, it was hard to see where this record was going to fit in. Which perhaps explains why, as the four members of Whipping Boy plugged in their instruments at the London Astoria, the venue was at best half-full.”

In a more just world, When We Were Young would be up there in the canon with Come On Eileen and American Pie, a bittersweet memorial to simpler times whose poignancy grows exponentially with every passing year

Pete Paphides

Pete has spent two and a half decades telling anyone who will listen about that night and the magic of Heartworm “It was exhilarating – but also heartbreaking. Heartbreaking because you know that when a band who is signed to a major label plays to a half-empty venue in London – it won’t go unnoticed by their paymasters. Certainly not, at any rate, when none of the singles from the record they’re promoting manage to scrape the Top 40. But those of us who were listening didn’t forget. We told our friends. And they told their friends. And the reputation of this magnificent album grew and grew, to the point where younger artists such as Fontaines D.C. were citing it as one of the greatest albums of the past 30 years – a view ratified by a poll in the Irish Times last year which ranked Heartworm as the fourth greatest Irish album of all time. Alas, this was all too late to stop Whipping Boy from dissolving. But it’s not too late for Heartworm to assume its rightful position in the canon.”  

It’s one of the finest albums, and easily the most unsettling, in the grand history of Irish popular music

Colm O’Callaghan

With the Needle Mythology edition of ‘Heartworm’ being released on 3rd September 2021, a whole new audience will tell their friends who will tell their friends about a classic album that was simply not of its time. 

This new edition of the album on the Needle Mythology label features a remaster of the album by Sean Magee at Abbey Road, a second record/CD of B-sides, two previously unreleased demos and live tracks, along with sleeve notes by Colm O’Callaghan. The original vinyl of Heartworm has been out of print for over 25 years and regularly changes hands for hundreds of pounds.

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WHIPPING BOY HEARTWORM LP
NEMYLP009 – Heavyweight vinyl pressing (@ Vinyl Factory) 

SIDE ONE

1. Twinkle
2. When We Were Young
3. Tripped
4. The Honeymoon Is Over
5. We Don’t Need Nobody Else

SIDE TWO

1. Blinded
2. Personality
3. Users
4. Fiction
5. Morning Rise

SIDE THREE

1. When We Were Young (Philo Version)
2. I Am God (Demo of Fiction)
3. Magnolia (Demo of Blinded)
4. Caroline Says II
5. Tripped (Live)

SIDE FOUR

1. We Don’t Need Nobody Else (Acoustic Version)
2. Disappointed
3. Twinkle (Acoustic Version)
4. As The Day Goes
5. A Natural

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WHIPPING BOY HEARTWORM CD
NEMYCD009 – CD includes 20-page colour booklet.