• Eels @ Iveagh Gardens, Dublin

    July 9, 2018 - By 

    With the World Cup, the glorious weather and the afterwork buzz there is sense of anticipation around Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens on this balmy Friday night. It’s a beautiful part of the city and it is wonderful walking through the trees to see the food tents and all the happy faces of this vastly mixed crowd. The four man band of Eels take to the stage just after 8.30pm.  They take no prisoners by lashing into it some cover versions of The Who classic ‘Out In The Street’ then rather strangely and brilliantly ‘Raspberry Beret’, by the one and only Prince.…

  • Interview: Chelsea Wolfe

    July 9, 2018 - By 

    Currently on tour in Europe, the bewitching force that is Chelsea Wolfe will play Belfast’s Limelight on July 23 and Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre on July 24. Ahead of those shows, the Californian goth-rock artist talks to Jack Rudden about new music, her country music background, the ideal breakfast and more. On your latest release, Aaron Turner of Post Metal icons ISIS featured on the track ‘Vex’. What was it like collaborating with Aaron  and have you any plans to collaborate with other artists in the near future? CW: I also collaborated with Troy Van Leeuwen of QOTSA, and my longtime bandmate…

  • The Coral Set For Belfast and Dublin Shows

    July 6, 2018 - By 

    Set to be return with their ninth studio album, Move Through The Dawn, on August 17, English indie rock five-piece The Coral will stop off at shows in Belfast and Dublin in November. The James Skelly-fronted band will play Belfast’s Limelight 2 on Wednesday, November 21 and the Academy in Dublin on Thursday, November 22. Tickets are priced at £20 and €25 and go on sale on Monday at 9am. Directed by James Slater, check out the video for the band’s brand new single ‘Sweet Release’ below.

  • Dublin Oldschool

    July 6, 2018 - By 

    It’s hard to picture Dublin Oldschool on the stage. Emmet Kirwan’s 2015 poem-play of the same name, which ran at the National Theatre and won the Stewart Parker award, finds rushing, thumping life on screen, with Kirwan staying on to screenwrite and star, joined by first-time feature director (and co-writer) Dave Tynan. Set free from its theatrical box, Oldschool is a film that never sits still for long. Set over the course of one druggy, downey, uppey bank holiday weekend in the Irish capital, Dublin Oldschool has a compellingly mobile energy. It snakes through Dublin’s streets and backalleys, across its…

  • Watch: VerseChorusVerse – Category

    July 5, 2018 - By 

    Just last week, we shared news about outro, the new third album from Belfast-based singer-songwriter Tony Wright AKA VerseChorusVerse. Now, the musician and and former And So I Watch You From Afar riff-slinger is back with the video for the release’s lead single, ‘Category’. Shot on location and “on a whim” in the beautiful commune of Casalattico in Italian region of Lazio, it features a solitary Wright mirror this wonderfully carefree, sun-tinted effort, all while offering up some contemplative lyrical subtext: He said, “The lyrics are a meditation on contradictions and the restrictive construct nature of labels in this age of fluidity, masked…

  • Let’s Eat Grandma – I’m All Ears

    July 5, 2018 - By 

    Those who find themselves in their orbit have been quick to describe Let’s Eat Grandma’s rawness and genre-agnosticism as otherworldly. This is probably a fair assessment: Their experiments are, on the surface, unrelentingly other, as much as they are worldly. Up until now though, this is a space that these childhood friends have constructed and conjured for themselves. The beatific mini-universe that first emerged on their 2016 debut, I, Gemini, flooded with vibrancy, uninhibited imaginations and shared experiences — It was the kind of world energised by sugar-rushes and spurred on by way of red-eyes glued to early-morning cartoons. A…

  • Watch: Tayne – Haunted

    July 5, 2018 - By 

    Fronted by Galway native Matt Sutton, London-based noise-pop band Tayne has returned with new single – and their strongest track to date – ‘Haunted’. Lifted from the band’s forthcoming debut album, Breathe (which is expected some time in October) it’s a brilliantly full-blown, fist-clenched affair from the band, brimming with synth arpeggios, larynx-shredding vocals and a rhythm section that pummel without mercy. Speaking about the track’s homespun visuals, Sutton said, “With the video for ‘Haunted’, I wanted to recreate some of the themes from the record and also give an insight to the chaotic, intense live presence of the band. The…

  • Video Premiere: Aul Boy – Wait

    July 9, 2018 - By 

    Elaborated and delivering upon the promise laid down by his solo bedroom debut EP Blue Ghosts, Fionn Robinson, aka Aul Boy – now expanded to become fully fledged band – has given us a first peep of the video for their new latest single, ‘Wait’. Featuring Bjørn Patzwald, Peadar Coll & Jeremy Howard, the song is a wry, tongue-in-cheek, slice-of-life (“I’m not buying milk for two, baby“) distillation of Mac DeMarco, or Terror Twilight-era Pavement were they late-risers from Donegal. And, much like Mac reclaimed the vieux jeu Steely Dan, Aul Boy’s heartfully reclaimed Hendrix blues noodling works much to the song’s strength. The song was recorded and mixed by Percy Robinson…

  • Snail Mail – Lush

    July 4, 2018 - By 

    Snail Mail’s Lyndsey Jordan has spoken about her frustration at the media’s lingering focus on her age and it’s easy to understand her consternation. Barely 19, the poison chalice of being a young female musician irritatingly ensures that her music is often viewed through a very particular lens and often described in qualified terms: “Full of potential rather than fully realised”, “Precocious rather than simply gifted” etc.  Bearing this in mind it’s important to break that pattern and clearly state plainly that Snail Mail has made one of the brightest, most insightful and coolly understated albums of the year – No ifs,…

  • Watch: Anna’s Anchor – White Washed Corridor

    July 3, 2018 - By 

    Limerick alt-rock artist Marty Ryan AKA Anna’s Anchor has announced his new album, Everybody’s Welcome. Marking the news, Ryan has also unveiled the visuals for the album’s lead single, ‘White Washed Corridor’. He said, “It’s about my struggle to come to terms with my mother’s alcoholism and the ridiculously difficult, dangerous path I had to take in order to try and find help to come to terms with it, as the Irish government tries to turn a blind eye to mental health services, especially when it comes to alcohol related abuse.” Revolving around “the societal pressure and conformity of taking the road more…