• The Mad Dalton – Little Belfry EP

    December 2, 2015 - By 

    From the outset, one of the elements of The Mad Dalton’s Little Belfry EP that stands out is its ability to conjure a sense of location. With its lumbering, laboured melodies and guttural sadness, the record constantly evokes images of this kind of ‘Last Chance Saloon’ in the American midwest. A darkness at the edge of town where the shallow husks of self-proclaimed saviours keep knocking back glass after glass before the sun creeps over the horizon to remind them that time is endlessly creeping forward and that the fire water won’t burn away what they’ve done. Their stories are…

  • The Annulments – Everything I Lost

    October 27, 2015 - By 

    In an ideal world, the title of a record would tell you everything you need to know. Maybe not in the literal sense, as you’d wonder how many copies of Nickelback’s latest LP, 12 Generic Cobain Aping Songs, would sell. Everything I Lost, the debut album from Dublin folk group The Annulments is a great example of a name perfectly fitting an album. In three simple words, the phrase is able to evoke this incredibly personal sense of longing, sadness and pathos, yet is vague enough to apply in any context: loss of love, financial security or even a sense…

  • John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure

    October 9, 2015 - By 

    A record whose title essentially means Middle-Aged Nightmares doesn’t sound like a particularly fun prospect. That said, Grey Tickles, Black Pressure is such a wonderful, euphemistic description of its subject, layering the deeply troubling topic in a layer of abstraction and disassociation. This idea is mirrored in its eerie, yet cheerful, album cover; a man dressed in WASPy attire, his eyes replaced with inhuman, piercing white beams of light. This balancing act between sinister and serene is to be expected from the likes of John Grant, the former Czars frontman, whose previous two records stand as some of the finest…

  • Stonemasons – Lost Letters EP

    September 28, 2015 - By 

    There is a strange significance to this idea of an artist belonging to somewhere; Joyce belongs to Ireland, Martin Scorsese belongs to New York and NWA belong to Compton. Is it that there is this collective longing to, in someway, be involved in something bigger than ourselves? That, by virtue of having been in Dublin in the early 20th Century, 1970s New York or 1980s Compton, we can somehow feel as though part of something great? Maybe it’s the idea of being heard; that by having a voice that belongs to our home, we can all band together and feel…

  • Jeffrey Lewis and Peter Stampfel w/ Shrug Life @ The Hub, Dublin

    September 20, 2015 - By 

    U:Mack absolutely spoil Dublin. The breadth and magnitude of underground artists they’ve brought into the city is unparalleled and the undeniably consistent quality of musicians they bring is frankly jaw dropping. U:Mack are one of the city’s unquestioned saving graces and this show, Jeffrey Lewis and Peter Stampfel is a testament to the group’s quality and mentality. It was a wise decision moving this show from it’s original venue, The Hangar, to the small, more intimate location of The Hub. With it’s amusements lighting and couches, it feels like a much more appropriate, friendly and homely setting for this kind…

  • Battles – La Di Da Di

    September 16, 2015 - By 

    For Battles, it was always going to be downhill after a record like Mirrored; a strangely hypnotic and danceable collection of math rock songs that let the group kick in the door, guns blazing, announcing to the world that Battles were a fully formed and ready to rock. While recording their follow-up, 2010’s Gloss Drop, the group lost their lead singer and were forced to bring in a number of guest vocalists to fill the void as well as dropping vocals from a number of the tracks altogether. This schism of sound didn’t do the album, admittedly very good, many…

  • The Visit

    September 15, 2015 - By 

    It’s hard to deny that M. Night Shyamalan has had one of the more interesting career trajectories in contemporary American cinema. Beginning his career with some middling rom/family-coms, Night found a frankly ridiculous level of success with 2001’s The Sixth Sense”, one of the very few Oscar nominated horror films. He followed this up with two decent, if not spectacular pictures before seemingly deciding to set his bed on fire. The Village and Lady In The Water quite rightly tanked while The Happening may well be one of the most unintentionally hilarious films ever released by a major American studio. Most of…

  • Somadrone – Oracle

    September 11, 2015 - By 

    Looking back it’s hard to deny that Redneck Manifesto and its members’ various solo exploits stand as some of the more intriguing Irish records of the last decade. Records like I Am Brazil and Friendship have stood the test of time, Richie Egan’s Jape have been putting out some truly excellent music as demonstrated on Ritual and Somadrone’s AKA Neil O’Connor 2013 effort The First Wave was an Eno-inflected classic in waiting. Waiting two years to provide the follow-up, Somadrone has quietly released his latest LP, Oracle, and as to be expected from such stock as this, it’s very bloody good.…

  • Defeater – Abandoned

    September 10, 2015 - By 

    There’s something so intrinsically lovely about really good album artwork. While you shouldn’t be able to judge a record by its cover, it should act as some kind of indication of what you can expect. Abandoned, the latest LP from hardcore punks Defeater, has one of those covers that sets the tone for the album in a rather sublime fashion. It’s this murky, shadowy image of a priest overshadowed by a stained glass representation of a mother and her children. Not only does it capture the record’s more atmospheric and moody elements, but it also provides a neat visual representation…

  • Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    There’s something inherently calming about Yo La Tengo. They’re a fundamentally solid band, the kind who, at worst, release records that you don’t like rather than outright bad ones. They’re these reliable old workhorses whose every album is going to give you a least one thoroughly pleasant gift. They don’t make records that you eagerly watch the calendar for, but rather ones that provide a humble, unassuming announcement of their presence and let you discover them for yourself. Everything about them is decidedly pleasant, which leads us to their latest LP, Stuff Like That There. Stuff is a cover album…