• Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher

    July 3, 2020 - By 

    It doesn’t seem all too long ago that Phoebe Bridgers released her stunning debut Stranger in the Alps, but on her sophomore album, Punisher, the Los Angeles-born artist solidifies her reputation for masterful songcraft. Following the release of her carefully assembled alt-folk debut, Bridgers appeared under various guises such as Boygenius (appearing alongside Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker) and Better Oblivion Community Center (with Conor Oberst), spending her time touring, collecting memories and co-conspirators along the way. Punisher gazes at a faltering future, guided by a cornucopia of instrumentation, laying her accumulated experiences on the table like a winning hand,…

  • Big Thief – Two Hands

    October 21, 2019 - By 

    Two hands is the second album from Big Thief this year, following the sublime U.F.O.F. back in May. Despite such a brief interval between both albums, these “twins” reside in polar geographies; the former fixating on voyeuristic distance and disconnection, while the latter roots itself in a close and uncomplicated familial structure. There’s a desire for domesticity in Two Hands, which manifests in multiple ways, but is accentuated in the way the album was recorded almost entirely live, save a few overdubs. Bringing this raw, marked sound together with multi-faceted lyrics to explore internal uncertainties and societal grievances, Big Thief harness intimate…

  • Julia Shapiro – Perfect Version

    June 20, 2019 - By 

    Perfect Version finds Julia Shapiro wrangling with the idea of the self at a tumultuous time in her life, cataloguing the period following her exit from Chastity Belt’s third album tour due to a flustered blend of relationship woes and emotional toil. Facing the mirror to see nothing, she begins to question what it means to be someone at all, to be truly authentic. ‘Parking Lot’ materialises this thought into the daily task of trying to find somewhere to park, unmasking routines as things done out of mere habit rather than because we want to, raising questions about the significance…

  • SOAK – Grim Town

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    A northern voice cuts through the chatter; “this train is for the following categories of passenger only—recipients of universal credit or minimum wage, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, the lost, the grieving”. You pull your jacket closer to fend off the chill air that fills the carriage, wiping at the window with your free hand. It’s foggy outside, you make out nothing but a few barren trees and distant hills. With a heave the train begins to move, and before the conductor has even announced the destination you know where you’re going. Bridie Monds-Watson’s (aka SOAK) sophomore album Grim…

  • Julia Jacklin – Crushing

    February 24, 2019 - By 

    From the outside of a diary we observe nothing but casual scratches and marks of use on deep brown leather. Gently a hand moves to it, and with intention flicks to the next available blank page. A pen moves swiftly to and fro. Ink enters the page not by any requirement of physics, but seemingly through the weight of the deliberation behind it. Lines cross and titles sit unassumingly, until the sign off they reach outwards; the cover is closed and again the aged leather holds our gaze. Following up her 2016 debut Don’t Let the Kids Win, Julia Jacklin…

  • Robyn – Honey

    November 12, 2018 - By 

    The strobes hit with unforgiving regularity. Across the humid room you see a couple kissing vigorously, their hands dancing over one another. You’re dancing too, twisting and moving your body simultaneously with guttural thumps of bass. A flash reveals the glistening face of the man to your left, he beams over and moves his jaw up and down inaudibly, his words pummelled by the entrancing waves. A tear suddenly sprouts from the outer corner of his eye, but rather than wipe it away he allows it to slide jerkily down his face. You turn to see someone else whose mascara is running,…

  • Ross From Friends – Family Portrait

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    What is it about the past that fascinates us? What is it that allows us to romanticise and dream of places that we can’t ever return to? Is it because they are out of our reach that so too is the disappointment that often arises from getting what we desire? Nostalgia is a fickle thing, and in its use we often become completely submerged in our own warped perception of the past, ignorant to all but the glamorous detail. When we incorporate this almost artificial warmth into the lucid and veritable memories of our families, the intoxication becomes all the…

  • Florence and The Machine – High as Hope

    July 2, 2018 - By 

    Life is often polarised; Elation, devastation, swirling endlessly around us like the walls of a great hurricane. When we find ourselves in the eye of the storm serenity takes a hold, but with lengthened stays it can become stale, and we may once again crave to feel the chaotic winds around us. High as Hope, the fourth release from Florence and The Machine, is an intimate exploration of Welch’s most haphazard and vulnerable years, synchronised with homespun instrumentals and soaring vocals to magnificent effect. To reflect is to see, and in seeing we are immediately and irreversibly bestowed with responsibility.…

  • MGMT – Little Dark Age

    February 10, 2018 - By 

    MGMT are back, a decade after their acclaimed debut Oracular Spectacular was released, and five years after their convoluted self-titled made its way onto the airwaves. After their initial success, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser barrel rolled into a neo-psychedelic space that alienated the majority of their followers. This, of course, would have been a respectable, admirable decision from the duo had they produced something half-decent in that case. No one expected 2010’s Congratulations, an album that left the fans who revelled in the hooks and fist-pumps of ‘Kids’ and ‘Time To Pretend’ abandoned in a pit of half-baked, self-indulgence that aspired…

  • 18 for ’18: Pillow Queens

    January 22, 2018 - By 

    We continue 18 for ’18, our feature of showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Next up is Pillow Queens. Photo by Ciara Brennan, taken at plantlife.ie Queer, feminist, socialist. How does one encapsulate the pulsating movements of culture and ideals that are currently sweeping across the world, and furthermore, how does one do so colloquially and naturally? Dublin based Pillow Queens have the answer, using more than just their…