Political professionals call it “vetting”—the prolonged period of getting to know a candidate with little or no national profile. Journalists and opposition researchers comb through dusty files in city halls and state houses looking for evidence of character traits or telling details. Mostly, though, they’re looking for scandal and dodgy associations in public careers that in some cases span decades.

All politicians have an eye out for higher office, so they work hard to keep a tidy paper trail. But some candidates leave more than just paper behind. If, as looks increasingly likely, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley decides to run for president, the political professionals will need to vet more than just his record—they’ll need his CDs as well.

Any O’Malley for President campaign is sure to try to sharpen the Democrat’s public image by touting his longtime service as frontman of the Celtic rock band O’Malley’s March. O’Malley formed this labor of love in 1988, before holding public office, and the group plays semi-regularly at pubs and festivals around Baltimore. Their performance schedule slowed considerably when O’Malley became governor in 2007.

O’Malley’s March has released four CDs since 1997, all of which are available for streaming on Spotify, and describes its sound as “rocked up and funky Celtic music.” Their catalog mixes original O’Malley compositions with genre standards such as “The Black Velvet Band” and “Danny Boy,” and covers such as Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army” and the Pogues classic “Streams of Whiskey.”

In a Facebook bio, O’Malley claims to have been “raised on the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, educated by the Jesuits and Wolfe Tones, emboldened by Shane MacGowan, seasoned by Christy Moore.” I’m an Irish-American from the Northeast with a deep love of these same artists (and some experience with Jesuits). My politics couldn’t be more different than O’Malley’s, but I am quite capable of enjoying the music of singers with well-known left-wing views. Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg spring to mind, but there are many, many more.

Here’s what it boils down to: O’Malley’s March needs to be vetted, and I’m the guy for the job.

The best thing I can say about Martin O’Malley’s band is that I can imagine my 80-year-old dad listening to these records and enjoying them. As a vocalist, O’Malley does a fine enough job. He has a sweet-sounding tenor voice with a bit of Broadway in it, but his delivery is nothing like the artists he admires, all of whom boast a hard-living authenticity that the governor can’t hope to match.

I give O’Malley credit for not doing the whiskey-and-stout soaked bogman routine. He plays it straight—very straight—for the most part singing in his own accent, not some horrible brogue. The occasional lephrechaunish inflection calls to mind nothing more offensive than the amateur American actor performing Shakespeare with a hint of a bad British cadence—not good, but not criminal either.

But that’s where the faint praise ends. Overall, O’Malley’s March stinks like week-old corned beef and cabbage. The music is uninspired, overproduced, and lifeless. Anyone who listens to these discs will come away certain that Martin O’Malley’s true passion is not piping but politics. It’s certainly not poetry.

O’Malley’s March is a hobby, and it sounds like one.

Some will surely say that Irish music is best enjoyed in a live setting and that the governor is known to put on a raucous and enjoyable show. There are plenty of YouTube videos available to test that claim; I’ve yet to see or hear anything to support it.

The governor’s stage patter is about what you’d expect from a practiced politician: long-winded pandering with a smattering of applause lines. His middle-aged bandmates possess neither musical virtuosity nor discernible stage presence. In fact, O’Malley’s tight t-shirts—often with sleeves removed to accentuate biceps—seem to be the focus of attention. Yet even this touch, probably intended to highlight O’Malley’s Springsteenesque regular guyness, works against the Celtic spirit of the music. He didn’t get those guns from throwing kegs around the Guinness brewery.

If you like watching painfully earnest historical reenactors and under-rehearsed community theater, you might like O’Malley’s March. If you like Joe Sixpack-style Democratic politicians from Northeastern cities, you’ll probably like them even more. If you like the Clancy Brothers, Shane MacGowan, or the Wolfe Tones, however, you should steer clear. There is nothing for you here.

As you hear the distant bodhránbeat of O’Malley for President getting closer and closer, remember—he’s been vetted.