• Download: Nine Inch Nails – Copy Of A

    August 12, 2013 - By 

    Taken from the band’s forthcoming new album Hesitation Marks, Nine Inch Nails are giving away a new track – ‘Copy Of A’ – via Amazon. Something of a recent live staple, the track comes off the back of the release of ‘Came Back Haunted’ in June, the band’s first single since signing with Columbia Records. Nine Inch Nails play Belfast’s Belsonic on August 21. Go here to buy tickets. Hesitation Marks – the band’s eighth studio album to date – will be released on September 3. Stream the track via YouTube below and download the track here.

  • Shigeto – No Better Time Than Now

    August 12, 2013 - By 

    Zack Saginaw is a man with a distinct mantra. The Detroit-raised artist was surrounded by jazz and mo-town music from an early age, influenced heavily by his family upbringing. After studying electronic production in both New York and London, he has decidedly stuck to his roots ever since. Across numerous releases under the moniker Shigeto over the past few years (itself a reference to his past – his grandfather’s name), his blend of instrumental jazz, dubstep and hip-hop combined with his ever-present fascination with his heritage has yielded a collection of satisfying releases and remixes. His latest effort, No Better…

  • Transmit: Kasper Rosa, Lantern For A Gale, Vanilla Gloom

    August 12, 2013 - By 

    This gig was brought to you by Transmission; a regular showcase taking shape with some interesting and varied line ups drawing a respectable crowd on a nondescript Wednesday night. Belfast-based three-piece Vanilla Gloom take to the stage and start into their rain-soaked grunge pop to open the evening. A band whose name pretty accurately describes their music, the gloomy yet dreamy tone provides a good counter to the high pitched vocals which come across clearly and strongly, especially when delivered by all three members. Heavily indebted to the sounds of Seattle, with quite a nod to Weezer in the more mid-paced…

  • Revisited: Seven Summits – Fossils

    August 11, 2013 - By 

    In the first of a new weekly feature revisiting various relatively recently-released records (everyone loves alliteration, right?) from local acts we take a look at the effortlessly enchanting Fossils, the second album by Belfast-based indie pop band Seven Summits. Released last August, the album’s wonderfully inimitable, masterfully melancholic sound is underpinned by deeply woven introspective intelligence of frontman Rory Nellis. Currently recording new material for a new release, the band – now a quartet featuring Joe McGurgan (Malojian) on bass – recorded Fossils with Phil D’Alton of Master & Dog and was mastered by Fergal Davis. Propelled by Dominic Coyle’s synth lines,…

  • The Icarus Line – Slave Vows

    August 9, 2013 - By 

    I love a good steak. It’s a delicious, vaguely healthy treat that tastes like victory with an additional side of glory. The thing I love most about steak is the precision involved in getting it just right. The Icarus Line‘s Slave Vows in many ways is an overcooked LP; one which starts off as a fine rare and ends up as charcoal. The album is definitely one of two parts: the noisy, overlong Stooges covers and the noisy, substantially better Stooges covers. With regards to the first half, it is very clear that Iggy and friends’ Fun House record was the…

  • Farewell, Cellar Bar

    August 8, 2013 - By 

    Featuring the thoughts of different people associated with local music or indebted to the establishment in various ways, our reviews editor and PigsAsPeople axeman Stevie Lennox gives his thoughts on and pays tribute to legendary hub of Mid-Ulster/Northern Irish music culture, Draperstown’s Cellar Bar. ___ Well, it’s been a rough few months. With Auntie Annie’s having closed house with no sign of a return, Glasgowbury announcing that this year’s was the final one and now Draperstown’s Cellar Bar – the only decent refuge for anyone seeking original music anywhere near Mid-Ulster. Having dealt with Ryan Lagan and the staff in the…

  • Getting Re-Acquainted: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead – Mistakes and Regrets

    August 8, 2013 - By 

    By the end of the 90s, it had all gotten very…safe. Things had settled down after a rollercoaster ride lasting ten years, a journey that had taken in baggy, grunge, shoegaze, Britpop, trip-hop, and a host of other stuff (grebo, anyone?). But in the dying embers of the second millennium, popular music had sunk into a quagmire of worthiness, a sludgy mess of genre hopping experimentalism without form, and of box ticking, perhaps best exemplified by Blur’s bloated misstep, 13. It was all very worthy, it was all perfectly well executed, and it was all very dull. And to top…

  • Scott and Charlene’s Wedding – Any Port In A Storm

    August 7, 2013 - By 

    Moving to a new city can be hard. The initial bewilderment at unfamiliar surroundings can quickly give way to crushing loneliness, self-doubt and yearning for days gone by. Working dead-end jobs to make the rent; becoming infatuated in seconds and watching it fade just as quickly; a never-ending supply of encouraging words from newfound friends in bars you’ll never see again. All familiar moments in a life that might be ‘just getting started’, but is constantly dogged by a desire to return to a time when such troubles simply didn’t exist. Scott & Charlene’s Wedding’s second album, Any Port in…

  • In Conversation: Kasper Rosa, Lantern For A Gale, Vanilla Gloom

    August 6, 2013 - By 

    Ahead of their show at Belfast’s Limelight 2 on Wednesday, August 7, Ryan McCormick (guitarist/vocalist, Kasper Rosa – pictured above), Danny McConaghie (guitarist, Lantern For A Gale) and Grace Leacock (drummer, Vanilla Gloom) participate in the first ever In Conversation, a feature in which we get members of three local bands to discuss different aspects of writing, performing and touring both at home and abroad – as well what ever conversational tangents take their fancy… ___ The Death Knell of Local Music? Danny: So is the Northern Irish music scene on its knees? Praying for forgiveness? Grace: “Aww, I feel sad when I hear that!Good music comes in…