• Lisa Hannigan @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    December 21, 2016 - By 

    Whether it’s the respite from the heady daytime rush or simply the nature of taking stock of the twelve months just gone, there’s something about this time of year that resonates so strongly with the deeply reflective craft of Lisa Hannigan. Having played a brace of fondly-recalled Christmas shows in the city back in 2011 and 2009, that association goes that little bit further for many in Belfast’s packed-out Empire Music Hall tonight where, comfortably edging into the realm of dewy-eyed, quasi-festive tradition, fans – both seasoned and new-fangled – assemble to bear witness to an artist unquestionably at the peak…

  • Enemies Final Show @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    December 20, 2016 - By 

    For Enemies’ final show to land at this stage of an already turbulent year for Irish independent music felt significant. Throughout the course of a Sunday night in Vicar Street there was a sense of one era’s gradual end and another’s step further to the fore permeating the venue. Looking back on a year that saw more than a fair share of independent acts bow out gracefully from the scene, to have this gig as somewhat of a bookend for that felt meaningful. It re-instilled the importance for a band or artist to always act on their own terms, to…

  • Allied

    December 20, 2016 - By 

    Allied is one of those films that defies logic. It has all the ingredients needed to make a potential classic, as it has Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) on directing duties, Steven Knight (Locke) on the script and Brad Pitt (Fight Club) and Marion Cotillard (Macbeth) in starring roles. So how they managed to create a load of over-stylised nonsense is mindbogglingly frustrating, but the usually reliable director has pulled it off. The story kicks off with an introduction to Pitt’s character – a Canadian spy working for the British army – as he is air dropped into the…

  • Gross Net – Quantitative Easing

    December 16, 2016 - By 

    The issue of building your persona around darkness is that after a certain point it becomes ridiculous. An overwhelming sense of nihilism, an abhorrence of any kind of salvation and an unwavering fascination with misery can be profound, for a while. Those who can sustain careers built around gloom, the likes of Sun Kil Moon, Scott Walker and Nick Cave, know that you have to allow some light in. Because if you don’t and you’re unwilling to go the extreme, á la Ian Curtis or Richey Edwards, then all you doing is insincere posturing which will inevitably slide into unintentional…

  • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

    December 14, 2016 - By 

    Rogue One: A Star Wars Story feels like the highest budget fan film you’ve ever seen. You might think that sounds like an insult, but I mean it as the highest of compliments. It’s the spirit of Star Wars channelled through the lens of a World War 2 film. Rogue One takes place before A New Hope, referencing events mentioned in the opening crawl of the first film. A squad of rebels are tasked with swiping the plans for the Death Star to help the Rebel Alliance destroy the Empire’s most deadly weapon. The story fills in some of the gaps…

  • Enemies – Valuables

    December 12, 2016 - By 

    It’s been a tough year of seeing some of Ireland’s best-loved acts announce that they would be calling time on their current incarnations. From Fight Likes Apes to Solar Bears, from The Funeral Suits to Land Lovers, it’s been a year of sobering reminders that no matter how many hours are notched up in the “joyful slog”, no matter how many momentous shows are played and records released, it is a Herculean task for independent bands to keep it going forever. No matter how much we want these acts to consistently be releasing albums and traversing the country to play…

  • White Collar Boy – Priory Hall

    December 7, 2016 - By 

    Showing their roots in the form of sonic cap doffs to the likes of MK, Larry Levan, but more-so the straight-laced forms of euro disco prevalent in the 90s, White Collar Boys’ exceptionally infectious brand of garage-inflected house shines iridescent throughout their Priory Hall EP. The duo’s first effort proper since 2013, the four tracks of polished electronica that owe much more to Cologne than Chicago in places, relay to the listener a number of colourful synthesiser runs, throbbing rhythmic hits, and deep melodic excursions. EP opener and title-track ‘Priory Hall’ features Sean Reilly delivering a vocal that adds much…

  • Bioshock: The Collection (2K Games, Multiformat)

    December 6, 2016 - By 

    What if anything truly was possible? Anything at all, no matter how outlandish, unlikely or, depending on your own proclivities, morally wrong, was within your grasp. You could think of an object, place, person or talent, and it would be given to you, almost entirely free of charge, and you could use these things entirely as you saw fit. It is an intriguing if slightly worrying question, and one that leads on to other intriguing if slightly worrying questions, chief of which is the thorny philosophical debate over causality: do all actions have a reaction, and do all causes have…

  • Martha Wainright – Goodnight City

    December 5, 2016 - By 

    At the core of Martha Wainwright’s identity there exists a conflict between the scabrous and nakedly honest confessional singer-songwriter and a mercurial musical translator, plucking various influences and sources and remolding them into something almost unrecognizable. The latter produces work like her soundtrack to the French Canadian TV series Trauma or the collection of lullabies she produced with her sister. The former is responsible for tracks like the furiously candid “Bloody Motherfucking Asshole”. With Goodnight City, Wainwright tries to walk hand in hand with these two, distinct, personas, rotating the spotlight between them and showcasing the breadth and scope of…

  • One More Time With Feeling

    December 3, 2016 - By 

    As the credits roll on Andrew Dominik’s latest film, a documentary charting the first performance of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ album Skeleton Tree, the words stunning, unique, heartbreaking, profound, tragic, funny, melancholy, raw, honest and awesome all come to mind. But that would sell this remarkable film short, as its devastatingly intrusive climax is softened by a mature and respectful depiction of what has to be an incredibly hard period for Cave, as he deals with the accidental death of one of his twin sons. One More Time With Feeling kicks off with candid interviews of long-time Bad…