• exmagician – Sit Tight

    July 11, 2024 - By 

    With about as fitting a title as possible, Sit Tight is the self-released, second full-length release from exmagician, coming a whopping eight years after debut Scan The Blue (Bella Union, 2016). The duo, better known as Daniel Todd and James Smith, are half of one of Belfast’s most criminally underrated prospects, Cashier No. 9. While Cashier No. 9 were more interested in bringing shoegaze sounds up to date for the millennial generation, exmagician is an entirely different beast. More so a studio project than a band, the band have seemingly spent all this time moulding this wonderful collection of songs…

  • Landless – L​ú​ireach

    July 10, 2024 - By 

    Landless is Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch. Lúireach is the follow-up to the quartet’s 2018 album Bleaching Bones. When translated from the original Gaelic, its title can mean a breastplate or protective coat, or a hymn or prayer for protection. It’s an apt title. The album features 10 songs, many about strong women, that explore themes of “melancholy, love, death and mystery,” performed by four equally powerful voices that envelop each other without restriction of movement. Dublin-based Landless perform traditional and contemporary folk songs with sparse accompaniment. While it would be remiss to disregard the presence…

  • Tight Unit, Closer Friends: An Interview With Search Results

    March 18, 2024 - By 

    Since featuring them as an Inbound artist late last year, Search Results have smitten many more listeners with their masterfully mercurial indie-rock craft Ahead of what’s set to be a packed few months, Danny Kilmartin chats to Dublin trio – guitarist Fionn Brennan, drummer Jack Condon and bassist Adam Hoban – about the road less travelled they have taken to their upcoming second LP Photos by Monika Ruman What’s in a name – why Search Results? Jack: We lost a bet with Shane Clifford. You started writing together very quickly after first meeting. What was it that brought you together…

  • Naoise Roo – Emotionally Magnificent

    November 10, 2023 - By 

    Having emerged as one of the most unique singer-songwriters in the Irish music scene with her debut album, Lilith, Naoise Roo is back with her follow-up Emotionally Magnificent. This time around, we find the Dublin-raised, Belfast-based artist at her most open and progressive. The 11-track LP delves into themes surrounding depression, public perceptions of women with mental illness and the complexities of the music industry itself. Naoise Roo’s voice has already been compared to one PJ Harvey. This is evident from opening track ‘Sick Girlfriend’, her deep voice quivering with emotion during the voices but soaring during the hook over…

  • Inbound: Lunch Machine

    July 21, 2023 - By 

    “I was working as a waitress when it came to me”, says Jude Barriscale of the origin of her band’s name. “It was really busy all the time, so I felt like a machine that brings you lunch. Lunch is also the break in the working day, the break we all look forward to.” Apt, given how much there is to look forward to from the Belfast-based quartet. Frontwoman Barriscale and company – guitarist Pearse Owens, Robert Mulhern of Tuath on bass, and drummer Kieran Devlin – channel disparate influences like Courtney Barnett, Deftones, Bicep, and “lo-fi hip hop to…

  • Hands Up Who Wants To Die – Nil All

    April 3, 2023 - By 

    For years, Dublin’s Hands Up Who Wants To Die have been obliterating the eardrums of audiences across the continent. Previously led by the nihilistic poeticisms of one Barry Lennon, the group’s amicable split with the formidable frontman allowed the quartet to refocus on composing their third album, with new recruit Rory O’Brien from Ten Past Seven taking over lyrical duties. On the resulting Nil All, the band’s first release in six years since their split with B.O.B, Hands Up Who Wants To Die expand upon the beautifully brutal soundscapes of the band’s previous releases Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo and…

  • Inbound: Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra look poised for a strong 2022. Off the back of the cutting ‘I didn’t love you when I said I did,’ the Dublin trio recently released ‘Empty Envelope,’ a contemplative dream-pop lamentation that earned comparisons to Pillow Queens and the Cranberries. The single was inspired by a dream that frontwoman Sarah Deegan had in which she received an envelope in the post. “It was from my ex,” she explains. “I opened it and it was empty. It felt like a good metaphor for the relationship – a nice outward appearance but inside there’s really nothing there.”…

  • NewDad – Banshee

    March 8, 2022 - By 

    Young Galway quartet NewDad hit the ground running with the release of their debut EP Waves in early 2021. Its fresh take on hypnotic dream pop and shoegaze sounds captured the hearts and minds of listeners and critics alike. On their follow-up, Banshee, NewDad have kept that momentum going, accelerating toward a dazzling future. Recorded in Belfast and mixed by John Cogleton (Lana Del Rey, Phoebe Bridgers), Banshee sees NewDad dig deeper into their sound, resurfacing with a handful of tracks that see them at their most daring, intense and captivating. Opener ‘Say It’, arguably the band’s most radio-friendly track…

  • Earl Sweatshirt – Sick!

    February 8, 2022 - By 

    Penned as a reflection on the world’s weakened mental condition amid the pandemic, and the heightened anger and isolation that came with the near universal inertia and entropy, Sick! is former Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt’s fourth LP, arriving two years after his FEET OF CLAY EP and almost four years after his last full-length, Some Rap Songs.  With 10 tracks at a running time of just 24 minutes, the album is instantly comparable to its predecessor in terms of its pace. However, where Some Rap Songs is a murky, scattered aural journey, Sick! is comparatively smooth sailing. Sure, the wonky, glitchy…

  • M(h)aol – Gender Studies

    January 18, 2022 - By 

    M(h)aol’s intersectional feminist punk fury first entered public consciousness in 2016 with the release of their debut single ‘Clementine’. The song, inspired by Clementine Churchill’s anonymous 1913 letter to the Times in response to anti-suffrage campaigner Almost Wright, saw vocalist Roisin Nic Ghearailt’s flit seamlessly from a heavily affected robotic drone to a passionate wail, pitted against a guest vocal from Gilla Band’s Dara Kiely and murky, industrial guitar scratches. The band were rightly tipped for big things at this early stage. Then, there was nothing. Five years passed between ‘Clementine’ and its 2021 follow-up, ‘Laundries’, a reflection on one…