• Salome @ Grand Opera House, Belfast

    February 11, 2015 - By 

    Macabre, provocative, sexually-charged, unrelentingly intense; Northern Ireland Opera’s visceral interpretation of Richard Strauss’s opera Salomewas all these things and more. And few who were present are ever likely to forget the sight of soprano Giselle Allen’s Salome, drenched in John the Baptist’s blood and pleasuring herself, in paroxysms of ecstasy, with his decapitated head. This matinee performance was undoubtedly a stimulating alternative to church and Sunday lunch. As one well-heeled septuagenarian lady commented at the end of this very rock ‘n’ roll show: “I’ve never spent a Sunday afternoon quite like that before.” Nor Allen, as like as not. In…

  • Quarter Block Party 2015

    February 11, 2015 - By 

    FRIDAY The excitement is palpable throughout the city’s creative communities in the run-up to the Block Party, and even before your writer gets to his relatively late start on proceedings, word filters through that the Structures and Strategies meeting will lead to more events in its vein, a forum for local creatives to air ideas and exchange thoughts. People’s gears are grinding already, it seems. We’re waiting outside the Gate Cinema for a few minutes and the small group outside is already conjecturing about what they’ll see out of charismatic American performer Kate McGrew (below), as well as plotting and…

  • No Monster Club – People Are Weird

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    No Monster Club is a cacophonous creature that can’t be categorized. Styled by Dublin’s own Bobby Aherne, this musical act is a creation born of many genres, many trials, many errors, and many years in production, with latest release People Are Weird proving no exception to this theme. In fact, this eighth album represents a lot of Aherne’s transformation as an artist these past eight years. Dipping his hands and his listeners’ ears into various pots of sound across the set, Aherne flees from being pinned to one classification, weaving an opus which draws on the influence of past artists…

  • Viet Cong – Viet Cong

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    Viet Cong really know how to make an entrance. The first moments of their self titled debut LP contain those drums; they’re almost tribal with intensity but they’ve been distorted and muffled to the stage where they achieve this kind of industrial vibe, evoking the likes of the Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Intense Humming of Evil’ and Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Mr. Self Destruct’. It’s this kind of deeply unsettling atmosphere that the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten just revelled in and gives the band a clear mission statement: for these Canadians, it’s still the mid 80s, and Joy Division, Echo and The…

  • The Afghan Whigs @ The Academy, Dublin

    February 4, 2015 - By 

    Ohio’s Afghan Whigs descend upon The Academy for their first show since November 2014. “Shaking the dust off,” frontman Greg Dulli facetiously states, with a self-confidence that seems his very essence. Aside from a few vocal pitching issues – admittedly rather befitting of the music’s obstreperous character – the set is masterfully delivered by the imposing sextet. From the first, the mix is impeccable. The soul-tinged alt-rock Americans have arrived with full sensory assault in mind. Whigs’ original John Curley leads an unrelenting rhythm section over which the guitar, keys and string parts compose ardently the musical parchment for Dulli’s…

  • John Carpenter – Lost Themes

    February 2, 2015 - By 

    Within seconds of hitting play on director John Carpenter’s first ‘real’ album, pictures start to form in your head. Kurt Russell, chewing on a cigarette, sullenly peeking out with his one eye, stubble so rugged you could grate cheese on it, and a fashion sense that is questionable, at best. There might never be another Snake Plissken movie, but when John Carpenter is behind the synth, suddenly there doesn’t need to be.In some part due to necessity, Carpenter composed the soundtracks to the vast majority of his films, working quickly and cheaply, utilising basic rock band instrumentation and heavy, primitive…

  • Tropics – Rapture

    January 30, 2015 - By 

    The second full-length release from vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Chris Ward, better known as Tropics, Rapture builds on 2011’s lushly produced Parodia Flare to create something equally atmospheric, if rather more reserved than its title might suggest. Opening track and lead single ‘Blame’ establishes the album’s intriguing combination of reticence and expansiveness, as Rhodes pianos, gently bubbling analogue synths and flickering snatches of noise provide the bed for Ward’s gentle vocal, while loose but forceful percussion brings momentum. Looseness is a watchword across the album, which is propelled by richly textured percussive arrangements that ebb and swell as organically as the melodic components.…

  • Hot Cops – #1 Babes

    February 2, 2015 - By 

    Arguably one of the most exciting and idiosyncratic Irish indie-rock bands of a generation, Belfast-based three-piece Hot Cops are teetering on the brink of some great things in 2015. Released immediately off the back of their stellar double-single ‘Origami/Novelty’, the band’s new four-track EP, #1 Babes, coyly, often cryptically renders instability, heartbreak, and the human condition in first-rate, wanderlust-tinged lo-fi glory. Positively bursting at the seams with fuzzed-out tangents, earworming refrains and masterfully nonchalant hooks, the Carl Eccles-fronted threesome’s cunningly off-kilter, slacker-soaked anti-anthems instantly evoke their main influences in Pavement, Deerhunter and Cloud Nothings. At the root of that is…

  • R51 – Pillow Talk EP

    January 29, 2015 - By 

    Belfast’s R51 latest EP, Pillow Talk, has got powerful weapons hidden in it’s arsenal. The release is awash with lush guitars, brutal riffs and a genuine excitement. The influence of the Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine is evident throughout. However, rather than parroting what those bands have done, the band seem intent on mixing these sources with their own voice to create something refreshing. Centrally though, the band seem intent on straddling that fine line between artistic and accessible and while they may not always be successful in that goal, they still knock it out of the park…

  • Jape – This Chemical Sea

    January 29, 2015 - By 

    How do you follow up not one, but two Choice Music Prize winning albums? This is a dilemma that so far no one has ever had to face other than Jape’s Richie Egan. He’s Ireland’s answer to PJ Harvey in that respect, although even she didn’t win her two Mercury Prizes with two consecutive albums.  First properly establishing himself with 2008’s Ritual, still a bona fide Irish classic and arguably Egan’s first solidly consistent piece of work, having benefitted from the success of minor hit single ‘Floating’ to show him which direction to settle on, 2011’s Ocean Of Frequency was…