• Wild Beasts @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    February 18, 2018 - By 

    This is the end of the indie technocrats. Nearly a decade after the release of Limbo, Panto Wild Beasts graced the Olympia stage for the last time. While this signals a very real end for the Kendal four-piece, it also serves as a more abstract end for an era of indie as a whole. Everywhere you look, mid-noughties bands are calling it a day. The age of four blokes and a guitar is over. But then, Wild Beasts never subscribed to this image of the scene. Their music was meant as the antithesis of the cheap lager and a pack…

  • Rejjie Snow – Dear Annie

    February 16, 2018 - By 

    Rejjie Snow had been knocking around for the best part of a decade now without a “proper” release under his belt (though 2017’s The Moon & You mixtape was excellent). In the six years since he broke onto the scene with ‘Trumpets’, the Dublin-born rapper has gone from being a YouTube buzz artist to collaborating with Joey Bada$$, supporting Madonna and hanging out with King Krule so fast that it’s hard to know exactly when the turning point really was. Any one of these things would have been the dream come true for a boy from Drumcondra and yet Mr. Snow – real name  Alexa Anyaegbunam – achieved…

  • Franz Ferdinand @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    February 13, 2018 - By 

    You get the impression Alex Kapranos enjoys this kind of thing. The frontman strutted on stage, fully decked out in signature skinny suit and tie, looking like he was born there. Sporting a newly bleached quiff and rockstar pout, the Scot had a heavy whiff of Bill Nighy’s character in Love Actually about him. There were hips thrusts; there were finger wags; there were even Eddie Van Halen style guitar jumps. And like the aforementioned Nighy, you can’t help but be endeared by his performance. Before the Dublin crowd got this show of old school entertainment, there were some young…

  • Justin Timberlake – Man of the Woods

    February 6, 2018 - By 

      There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get in touch with your roots. There comes a point in everyone’s life when they feel the need to look back; to examine the past in order to know how to deal with the future. Justin Timberlake is in such a mood. And, unfortunately for us, he’s not afraid to shout about it. It’s not surprising that, after recently becoming a father, JT would be feeling rather “homely”. In the teaser trailer for Man of the Woods, Timberlake states “This album is really inspired by my son, my wife, my family, but more…

  • A Slice of the Action: Meet Ireland’s Newest Record Label Pizza Pizza Records

    January 31, 2018 - By 

    With their aim of filling the void of independent bands having their music released on vinyl, Cal Byrne talks to Shane Byrne of Dundalk’s new-fangled Pizza Pizza Records about wax, big plans, keeping it DIY, world domination and – very important – favourite pizza toppings. What’s your favourite pizza topping? Plain cheese with a garlic dip is always a good call. Difontaines, Dark Horse Pizza (who sponsored our recent fundraiser by the way) or Tonys in Dundalk. Their garlic dip is class. That, or spinach & feta. 10/10 What inspired you to make Pizza Pizza records? I really like vinyl, and…

  • Django Django – Marble Skies

    January 26, 2018 - By 

    Anyone who has ever been in a band knows the importance that power dynamics play. The internal struggle is one fought by most members and often glamorised by talking heads in music documentaries. Were they the ‘quiet one’ or the ‘egotist’? The “fight-starter” or “facilitator”? Such stereotypes don’t seem to apply to Django Django. The four-piece formed at the Edinburgh College of Arts feel closer to the proper meaning of a “band” – they feel like a collective. Vincent Jeff provides those quintessential reverb-soaked vocals; Jimmy Dixon the harmonies that give the band “their” sound; Tommy Grave the synths that offer…

  • Porches – The House

    January 21, 2018 - By 

    There are few conflicts greater than those fought at home. These contests are never about the things themselves but more about the idea of what home should be. Should it be a place to relax or a place to play; a place to laugh or a place to learn. Aaron Maine addresses these inner/outer conflicts with his latest album The House. It’s an incredibly honest piece from the New Yorker and the logical next step from 2016’s Pool. Lyrically speaking, Maine has left the pool in name only. Everywhere you go there are references to water on this record. The…

  • 18 for ’18: JYellowL

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    JyellowL, aka Jean-Luc Uddoh, has his foundations in old-school hip-hop but his head firmly in the now. His 2016 single ‘Life Right Now’ turned heads by taking on the Syrian refugee crisis whilst simultaneously dressing down the financial crash of 2008. This may be surprising coming from a 19-year-old, but for Uddoh, this is all he’s known. The Dublin rapper represents a generation of artists who’ve grown up in recession and seen only stagnation and roadblocks ahead. The idea of opportunity is alien to them. JyellowL’s music feels like a reaction to this. His stylings are very much in the…

  • Brockhampton – Saturation III

    December 19, 2017 - By 

    Every great party has a moment where you wish it would go on forever. That point where you look around the room and hope against all hope that it could just go on and that the obligations that tomorrow always brings might never arrive. But part of you knows they will. Brockhampton’s latest record feels like the sonic equivalent of that moment. Saturation III is the end of one era for this 14 man boyband, troupe that seems simultaneously assured of itself and its future, but also not quite ready to let go of that perfect moment before reality sets in.  There are few stories from…

  • Good Time

    November 30, 2017 - By 

    As titles go, it’s hard to think of one more misleading than Good Time since people went to see Eraserhead thinking it was about a teacher with a penchant for clean notebooks. No one is having a ‘good time’ in the Safdie brothers’ latest offering: not Robert Pattinson’s Connie; not his girlfriend Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh); and certainly not the viewer. This is as intense a noir thriller as you’re likely to see. All the action takes place over a particularly manic 24 hours in New York. It starts with Connie and his mentally challenged brother Nick (Ben Safdie) attempting to…