• Ty Segall – Mr. Face EP

    January 28, 2015 - By 

    We’re not really certain that Ty Segall sleeps. His near-constant stream of output, be it through his seven solo albums or countless collaborations on other records, all within a relatively short span of seven years, make us wonder when he would have the time. His latest effort comes straight off the back of last year’s glam-powered double album, Manipulator in the form of a four track EP entitled Mr. Face. Mr. Face is currently being promoted as being ‘The World’s First Playable Pair Of 3D Glasses’ but they use the term ‘glasses’ generously. If you were to hold the two red and blue 7”…

  • The Midnight Union Band – Of Life And Lesser Evils

    January 23, 2015 - By 

    The formation of The Midnight Union Band sounds like one of those great rock and roll stories. Peter Flynn (piano/organ/electric guitar/lapslide/mandolin), Brian McGrath (bass) and Cian Doolan (electric guitar/mandolin) had all played in a band together, but they were struggling with creating a grander sound. One day they literally stumbled upon busker Shane Joyce on the streets of Kilkenny and invited him to join the band, and with the addition of drummer John Wallace, it seems the The Midnight Union Band was truly born. After the release of five song EP Behind The Truth in 2013 and a year of…

  • Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love

    January 23, 2015 - By 

    If, after ten years and numerous highly influential albums, you want to call it a day, that’s perfectly fine. That old Neil Young line about burning out holds as much weight now as it did in back in 1979. But if you are going to reappear without warning, you’d better have a damn good reason. You can talk about legacy ultimately being redundant, but how many great bands are tarnished by a bad comeback album. The Pixies’ Indie Cindy is a record chock full of cuts that wouldn’t be considered C-sides back in their heyday, the world wasn’t begging for…

  • American Sniper

    January 22, 2015 - By 

    American Sniper is one of the most grotesque films I’ve ever seen. A blatant piece of flag-waving Bush-era US propaganda, it’s a war movie where 100 dead Iraqis do not equate to one dead American. Where all brown people – children included – are enemies of ‘freedom’. Where the United States is a glossy land of BBQs, rodeos and pretty wives, and the Middle East is an “evil” pile of “dirt” populated by “savages”. These are expressions used by US Navy Seal Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a skilled sniper who, over a lengthy military career, racks up a body count in the hundreds from behind…

  • Belle and Sebastian – Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance

    January 21, 2015 - By 

    Nineteen years and nine albums later, Belle and Sebastian still prove to be a true testament of youth. Nearly two decades after the release of their debut album Tiger Milk, ninth studio album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance finds a sound that carries the torch of their primordial folk roots while embracing the changing tastes of an alt-oriented audience. Distributed by Matador Records, the album marks the band’s first release with the US indie label and the first with Atlanta-based producer Ben H. Allen III. Given this tenuous moment in the Glasgow group’s prolific career, the change in direction reads a…

  • Whiplash

    January 21, 2015 - By 

    True to its title, Whiplash hits like a double decker. I left the screening of writer-director Damien Gazelle’s astonishingly hot-blooded second feature dizzy and elated. Andrew Neiman (Miles Tenner) is a young, ambitious jazz drummer attending the fictional Schaffer Conservatory, the most prestigious music academy in the United States, and suffering from an acute case of what we might call ‘undergrad hubris’. Desperate to impress, he falls under the tutelage of the school’s alpha dog, Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), a merciless instructor who demands excellence of his pupils and enforces standards through a robust programme of terror and humiliation. Whiplash arrives on the…

  • The Dodos – Individ

    January 20, 2015 - By 

    Some bands have one album in their discography that will simply never be bettered and will always slightly overshadow all subsequent releases. The Dodos are one of those bands. After debuting with the pretty solid Beware Of The Maniacs, the duo came to most people’s attention with second album Visiter, an hour long indie folk odyssey, characterised by Meric Long’s intricate yet sometimes ramshackle finger picking and honey-like voice accompanied by Logan Kroeber’s frantic percussion, performed as if by a man with at least 3 arms. Wonderfully melodic, occasionally chaotic, it was the overlooked gem of 2008. They followed it…

  • Young Fathers @ Black Box, Belfast

    January 19, 2015 - By 

    Edinburgh trio Young Fathers play to a sold out Black Box as part of the tenth annual Out To Lunch Festival, and as one of the more highly anticipated acts in the programme, we can assure you that they do not disappoint. They open nearly in darkness with a single drum beat which slowly builds into a battle march and bleeds into the electrifying ‘No Way’. It’s menacing and theatrical and immediately sets up the extraordinary atmosphere spectacularly. Young Fathers have clearly approached their Belfast show with an attack mentality which by the end of their first track leaves many…

  • The Walworth Farce @ Olympia, Dublin

    January 15, 2015 - By 

    ‘It’s me.’ Delivered amid a melee of frazzled movement and chanting, these are the only two words spoken in the first ten minutes of Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce.  As the script is built upon a play within a play in which the Gleeson men cover nine roles, this clever opening could not be more smug for a show that lives in a universe of rapidly changing identities. Set in the dingy London flat of Corkian patriarch Dinny (Brendan) and sons Blake (Domhnall) and Sean (Brian), the show begins as the neurotic trio hastily set the stage of their decrepit…

  • Stars @ Limelight 2, Belfast

    January 15, 2015 - By 

    The experience of going to see a band live usually depends upon two elements – the strength of the artists and the audience. As Stars clamber on to the Limelight stage, bursting enthusiastically into ‘From The Night’, it soon becomes clear that it’s not the standard of performance that leaves the whole evening feeling a little… well…off. Stars are in Belfast to tour their seventh album, No One Is Lost. They make likeable records which translate live with ease. Belfast receives a sharply executed set-list of classics mined from their extensive back catalogue offering a satisfying mix of haunting, eloquent…