• John Grant @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    November 12, 2015 - By 

    John Grant really loves his audience and judging by the crowd of his second sold out show of a two night stint in Dublin’s Vicar Street, the feeling is mutual. Delving straight into two tracks from his new album Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, it is not long before he’s telling us just how much. This new album might lack the consistency of quality in the tracks of its predecessors but those that he choses to play live are no doubt the strongest ones. This combined with Grant’s charisma and the addition of a four piece band and three backing singers …

  • Bully w/ The Winter Passing & Fangclub @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    November 12, 2015 - By 

    Monday is a strange night for gigs in Ireland and it shows in the mostly empty main venue of Whelan’s. Fangclub take the stage as a line forms almost as far away from the stage as possible as though the crowd are sizing these lads up which can only make for a more daunting performance. Unfortunately there is little here that appears to win the crowd over. There are elements of grunge and Britpop, both musically and aesthetically, but nothing really new is offered from this. Fangclub are tight onstage and very good at what they do but they fail…

  • King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Paper Maché Dream Balloon

    November 11, 2015 - By 

    Their long-winded name gives the distinct impression King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are some whacked-out middle-aged men playing 80’s progressive rock, talking about spirituality and shit.  And on previous albums they have leaned in that direction, with sustained improvised grooves, but it has always been more in line with repetitive psych rock rhythms, than drawn out introspective jams.  On last album Quarters! there were majestically sprawling tracks, four of them to be precise, lasting 10 minutes and 10 seconds each.  They used wizardry of Gandalf proportions to instil magic in songs of that length, intricate musical patterns were weaved…

  • Brookyln

    November 9, 2015 - By 

    Judy Garland shut her eyes and clicked her heels and repeated her spell but she was only half right. There’s no place like home, but there are also many places like home. Given enough time and familiarity, potentially everywhere can feel like the place you’re supposed to be. The fluidity of home and its irresistible pull over us is the focus of emigration drama Brooklyn, directed by John Crowley and adapted from Colm Toibin’s novel by Nick Hornby, now becoming a solid interpreter of others’ works. At its heart is Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), who relocates across choppy waters from her barren 1950s Wexford town…

  • METZ w/ Oh Boland @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    November 10, 2015 - By 

    It’s surprising that Toronto’s METZ didn’t come to Ireland when touring their self titled 2012 debut, given the appetite in this country for the sort of noise rock they trade in. So after a reportedly thrilling appearance at Electric Picnic this year, it’s nice to see them wrap up the current leg of their European tour behind even better follow up II with a stop off in Whelan’s. Sadly Protomartyr, who accompanied them on the UK dates aren’t present tonight, but Co. Galway’s Oh Boland more than make up for that. Their hook laden garage pop feels like it could…

  • Web Summit 2015: Lost in a web or an opportunity to summit?

    November 9, 2015 - By 

    Web Summit has come and gone. And again it took the city by storm, 42,000 people from all across the world attended what is now not so much a conference as it is a festival. It’s the Electric Picnic of technology – one big party with lights and buzz. It’s a techie dream, an overload of information and noise. But is it all just buzz or is it useful to startups? After all, it is designed with startups in mind. Over three days Dublin bares witness to the latest in digital innovations. Leading tech giants, investors and the world’s media…

  • Floating Points – Elaeina

    November 6, 2015 - By 

    A couple of years ago, a friend dragged me to see Sam Shepherd (AKA Floating Points) DJ in a relatively small venue that normally hosted jazz and blues bands. There was my first clue. At the time, my knowledge and appreciation of “dance music” was speculative at best, if not completely grounded on naivety. I had only the most basic idea of what a DJ actually did, let alone having any notion as to what separated a good DJ set from a good one. My club experiences to that point had been based purely within the realm of four to…

  • Cheatahs – Mythologies

    November 9, 2015 - By 

    Mythologies is an appropriate name, with the London-formed Americo-Germanic-Canadian quartet Cheatahs once more harking back to subgenre worship of their indie rock, psych, Krautrock and, most prominently, shoegaze forefathers. Not even two years removed from the last record, things are getting more ethereal, with the emphasis on the psych and Krautrock, drastically reducing their tendency towards the more straightforward rockers. Mythologies’ level of gratification, as opposed to the instantaneity of their eponymous 2014 debut, comes in – appropriately enough – gushing waves. A lush production with a greater grasp on dynamics, it’s a record as much about textures as songs, even moreso than…

  • The Chills – Silver Bullets

    November 3, 2015 - By 

    When it comes to The Chills‘ comeback, a great many folks have been running with the return-from-the-wilderness narrative. Not surprising considering it has been 18 years since their last album proper, 1996’s lackluster ‘Sunburnt’, and the subsequent publicity fade-out. One can imagine, however, that not for one second did Martin Phillipps stop running through melodies in his head. You can also imagine that he wasn’t going to launch back into it until he was good and ready. And so Silver Bullets, the result of a recent, joyously-consistent flurry of activity, suggests there’s a whole lot to be said for taking…

  • Alarmist – Popular Demain

    November 3, 2015 - By 

    Dublin four-piece Alarmist’s first full-length album Popular Demain feels like it has been a long time coming. Having released their debut EP in August 2011 followed by the Pal Magnet EP in November 2013 the band have very gradually been growing into their sound, leaving each element to develop without urgency. The result of this patient honing of sound on Popular Demain is a collection of eight tracks that seamlessly combine elements of Math-Rock, Jazz and Ambient music without ever letting any of those sound become overbearing. Instead, the style and atmosphere created is an almost entirely unique one; complex…