• Mango & MathMan – Wheel Up

    December 13, 2017 - By 

    There’s a storm brewing on this island. For a nation of people who pride ourselves on our artists’ ability to twist and contort the English language masterfully, it’s surprising that our hip-hop scene has taken so long to come to fruition. Where in the past we would have had the likes of Messiah J and The Expert to represent us on the international stage, we’ve slowly but surely been building up a roster of top-tier artists. In recent years, Rejjie Snow, Kojaque, Hare Squead and Limerick’s Rusangano Family – to name but a handful –have proven without much doubt that we…

  • METZ Set For Whelan’s Return

    December 5, 2017 - By 

    Two years on from their barnstorming show in the same venue, Canadian noise rock trio METZ have announced that they’ll return to Dublin’s Whelan’s on May 1. The Toronto-based band released their third, Steve Albini-produced album, Strange Peace, via Sub Pop back in September. In his review of the album, TTA’s Cathal McBride said, “What it all adds up to is the band’s most complete and rewarding work to date.” Tickets for the Whelan’s go on sale this Thursday at 10am, priced €17.50.

  • Hüsker Dü – Savage Young Dü

    November 23, 2017 - By 

    We should all be eternally grateful to the Numero Group. Their tireless efforts to ensure that some of the great quasi-lost nuggets of our popular culture get rediscovered and granted a level of respect that they were deprived of upon their initial release. Their reissues and remasters are rich and varied, encompassing the likes of hardcore luminaries Unwound as well as forgotten soul star and transgender icon Jackie Shane. While the label has been working at an awe-inspiring level, they’ve recently outdone themselves. Savage Young Dü is a 69 track tome tracking the early years of the seminal Hüsker Dü, one…

  • Watch: The Elephant Room – Naive Green

    November 26, 2017 - By 

    Dublin trio The Elephant Room have shared a new track ‘Naive Green’. Having formed in January of this year, the band comprised of singer and guitarist Frank Shortle, bassist Shane Martin and drummer Ian Hand have already a string of singles under their belt and have been honing a sound that will resonate with anyone with a penchant for 90s indie rock and the lo-fi charm of slacker styles. Earlier singles ‘Brisco’ and ‘Ashes’ showed us a band with a precocious knack for a hook early in their nascence as a group. We previously drew comparisons between them and the likes of Sparklehorse and Wilco and…

  • Static Vision – What is and Now

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    We have to say – per capita, there’s no other town or city in Ireland producing DIY indie rock at the rate of Limerick. We’ve got Hot Cops in Belfast, Slouch in Dublin, but we can now happily add Static Vision‘s self-released 10-track debut to the likes of Eraser TV,  Cruiser, Anna’s Anchor, oh, and The Rubberbandits, to the city’s list of self-made accolades. Equal parts effervescent and slack, What is and Now is a stab of garage post-punk in the ’80s SST, Wipers-esque vein that could pass for an undiscovered proto-grunge gem from the midwest in 1989 fronted by a time-travelling Will Toledo, and having been…

  • Album Review: John Maus – Screen Memories

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    John Maus strikes you as the kind of man who would be making music regardless of whether anyone was listening or not. And for a long time they weren’t. His first two albums, Songs and Love Is Real, went by largely unnoticed. It was only on the 2011 release of We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves that critics started to really pay attention, despite a considerable and devout cult following having formed through the years. Most people would have been eager to capitalise after this new-found attention; to milk that cow for all it’s worth. But Maus is not most…

  • Watch: Thunder On The Left – National Insecurity

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Brian Ritchie  To mark its official release, London-based grunge trio Thunder On The Left have released their new single ‘National Insecurity’. Their first new music since 2015’s  The Art of Letting Go EP, ‘National Insecurity’ is a bleak gaze into the future the band predicts for us as we become ever more hyper-dependent on technology. The single is an ambitious, riff-laden belter that seems determined to shake some sense into us. Or at least freak the hell out of us until we put our phones down for 10 minutes. Recorded and mixed along with the rest of their forthcoming debut album by the…

  • Video Premiere: Half Forward Line – Column A, Column B

    October 26, 2017 - By 

    Galway super-group of sorts Half Forward Line are set to release their debut album The Back of Mass tomorrow. Before we premiere it on this here website though, the band have been kind enough to share a video for ‘Column A, Column B’. The trio, comprised of So Cow‘s Brian Kelly on guitar and vocals, Oh Boland‘s Niall Murphy and bass, and regular TTA photographer Cíarán Ó Maoláin behind the drums, have been doing some wonderful damage on the live circuit these past few months and also unveiled one of the sweetest love songs to come out of the West in quite some time in the form…

  • Track-by-Track: Feather Beds – Blooming

    October 26, 2017 - By 

      Ahead of the release of his second album Blooming, Dublin’s Michael Orange AKA Feather Beds has been kind enough to give us a track by track rundown of the record. Set for release this Friday 27 October on Montreal-based label Moderna Records, Blooming is a dreamy alt-folk venture written and recorded when the songwriter was living in Canada. Following his debut LP in 2015, The Skeletal System, Blooming is mixed and co-produced by Stephen Shannon (Adrian Crowley, Strands) and is a dreamy, multi-layered a that evokes the likes of The Antlers and Mutual Benefit‘s Love’s Crushing Diamond in its ambient folk atmosphere, but owes just as much to the hypnotic, minimal compositions of Steve Reich and to the…