• Everything Sucks #007: Red Hot Chili Peppers

    February 7, 2014 - By 

    Everything Sucks is back after a long hiatus. Not that it was around long enough for anyone to really miss, but that’s okay. The last time I really got on my high-horse, a bunch of bullshit and chapped arses ensued because – surprise, surprise – people by and large don’t like being called out on calling themselves music fans and then refusing to support music. So, the topic of music fandom is what I am here to discuss today, from the other side of the coin, both as a deluded culchie alt-rock-obsessed teenager, and the hateful hack he became, rather…

  • The Last Generation – Torann EP

    September 20, 2013 - By 

    The first thing that pops into your writer’s head when hearing Torann’s opening gambit, ‘Chromosome’, is how properly likeable it all is. Sabbath-esque riffing married to a short and sharp alternative package that, while obviously verging on nostalgia for some, such is its proximity in places to the nineties alt-rock influences it proudly wears on its sleeve, its rawness and sheer drive and verve lift it above the usual yarling and wordplay. Post-hardcore and math influences subtly make themselves known, and go surprisingly well with the double-bass assault that peppers the song’s undercarriage, before the whole thing goes into a…

  • Everything Sucks #006: The Problem With Arthur’s Day

    September 19, 2013 - By 

    Last time your columnist went on here to decry something he found was directly harmful to music in Ireland, he well overshot his mark and wound up dividing camp a little. So, let’s try a different tack, shall we? Arthur’s Day is coming up and already hundreds and thousands of casual drinkers are plotting their whereabout at 1759 hours that day. That’s just it, though: casual drinkers. This make-believe “holiday”, that was manufactured, not only in our lifetimes, but four years ago, is nothing more than another stupid ploy designed to shill alcohol to a society that already suffers from…

  • God Is An Astronaut – Origins

    September 8, 2013 - By 

    As God Is An Astronaut pull from one of Irish rock’s best-kept secrets to an institution in their own right, like many bands in their situation, they run the risk of depending on more of the same to retain the attentions of an ever-more unfocused audience, usually in search of the next shiny thing. With seventh album Origins, it’s heartening to see that this is far from the case with the Glen of the Downs-based outfit, expanding their sound and artistic horizons as a five-piece, and dialing back on a lot of the now much-imitated post-rock tropes that have defined…

  • Everything Sucks #005.5: Local Music Rant

    August 30, 2013 - By 

    If you’ve read the original column that was here and were offended in any way by my statements, I apologise. Opinion has been pretty much down split evenly from what little I’ve seen of it, some in agreement, some not so much. I hope to address this now. To those who have differed with it, I say this. To patronise or look down on anyone was not the intention. Far from it, in fact. The tone of the rant was fairly crass, but that was the point. My regular column here is an angry rant. As such, a certain humour…

  • Everything Sucks #004: Ten Years of Out On A Limb

    August 2, 2013 - By 

    Out on a Limb Records is ten years old this year. A testament to the staying power and DIY spirit of the Limerick indie, its roster reads like a who’s who of independent music in Ireland since its foundation, with survivors like Rest and Elk sharing room with staples like Jogging, Windings (above) etc. and a heritage with names like Giveamanakick, Waiting Room and other bands important to the development and proliferation of Irish DIY culture. Without OOAL, who knows what the scene would be like south of the border? It doesn’t bear thinking about. It was ten years ago, on a…

  • Everything Sucks #003: Millenials

    July 25, 2013 - By 

    So the latest bored-old-hack thing du jour is to label children of the ’80s “millennials” and get stuck into them for the same shit bored old hacks did to Generation X, etc. etc. So far, so very every reactionary article, and while a lot of them have valid points (narcissism and selfies, for example), it’s mostly just the same old same: “kids these days and their technology/music/haircuts (delete as applicable), aren’t they silly/weird/unfamiliar to our audience!”. The counter-arguments build up in your head as you read, and you know you’re fighting a losing battle with the decrepits that churn out…

  • Everything Sucks #002: Sweet ’95 – The Retortening

    July 19, 2013 - By 

    Looking at Dan Hegarty’s column on 1995 recently here on this site, I found that, for all the reminiscing on things like Britpop (which sucked, by and large, not that we knew better) and the WWF of the day (more on that later), it was summarily A Very Good Time for Irish music. Not as fervent and fertile as today’s jubilant mass of DIY gigs and indie labels, but a far cry from the marginalisation of independent and non-commercial music that had gone on a generation previous, where people like Phil Lynott were thrown out of the showband system that…

  • Everything Sucks #001: Shit Videos

    July 12, 2013 - By 

    So, now that we’re a few weeks removed from the colossal pant-wetting that happened online in the wake of Birmingham teenager Danish Ghaffar (or D4NNY, if that’s your thing) uploading his seminal masterwork ‘Goodbye’ to YouTube and its garnering of over a million views, let’s take a minute to consider the phenomenon of shit music videos before the next one arrives, shall we?   I’m as guilty as the next asshole of laughing at people who perhaps didn’t think their career choices through. I’m currently sitting on Drop-d.ie, a site I run, until we reboot it at some point in…

  • Altar of Plagues – Teethed Glory and Injury

    May 13, 2013 - By 

    After the breakthrough success of 2011’s Mammal, a release which bore witness to the peak of the band’s haunting collision of shoegaze and blackened malignance, Cork’s Altar of Plagues, fronted by WIFE man James Kelly, were guaranteed to be subject to scrutiny regardless of their next sonic step. Thankfully, they seem to have exhibited typical disregard for expectations and come out even stronger, and Teethed Glory and Injury as a result is their strongest, starkest statement yet. It is, at once, a widening of their trademark soundscape and a narrowing of focus – shredding, droning electronics and interference bid a…