• SPIES – Constancy

    December 7, 2018 - By 

    If death and taxes are the only two constants in life, why haven’t SPIES delivered any music that is less than exceptional? Since their launch back in 2011, the Dublin-based band have presented three EPs, each gradually cementing their reputation as post-punk revivalists. Sea Creatures, the last of these, arrived in 2015, and the band has since undergone a three-year hiatus. Writing sessions for Constancy had to fit in between full-time jobs, departures from the country and studies. For many, such a time-sensitive approach would be their shortfall. Constancy however, finds SPIES rejuvenated, reimagined, and with a whole new sonic…

  • The Old Man & The Gun

    December 7, 2018 - By 

    If you had to be robbed by anyone, you’d want to be robbed by Robert Redford. He’d flash his holster, give you a knowing nod, and lay on that wiley Texan charm, the undiminished, easy-going confidence. You’d hand over your bank card and apologise for your shitty overdraft. “No problem,” he’d smile. Based on the real-life exploits of Forrest Tucker, a serial bank robber and prison escape artist, The Old Man & The Gun is a light-hearted, light-footed crime comedy caper about the Sundance Kid refusing to go gently into that good night. After having made his way out of…

  • Woven Skull – Woven Skull

    December 3, 2018 - By 

    The latest Woven Skull record may be self-titled, but it’s a long way off being their debut. One glance at their Bandcamp page shows just how impressively prolific they’ve been over the past decade, with all manner of singles, EPs, albums and collaborations of improvisational drone-folk creeping out of their Leitrim base. And that’s not to mention the various solo and side projects the group – original trio Natalia Beylis, Aonghus McEvoy and Willie Stewart, along with more recent addition Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh of Cian Nugent & The Cosmos – manage to keep on the go as well. If giving…

  • Sorry To Bother You

    December 3, 2018 - By 

    Those who know Lakeith Stanfield, the reluctant hero of hip-hop artist Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You, probably do so from his scene-stealing turns in Donald Glover’s Atlanta as the bleary-eyed, conspiracy-promoting Darius, who seems to drift in and out of this dimension and the next. The show, aired on FX, is a rare one clued in to the absurdies and comic challenges of life on the lowest rung, where solid structures can melt away, like a nightclub wall that revolves when your back is turned. Sorry To Bother You, which stars Stanfield as a low-level telemarketer who shoots up…

  • Creed II

    November 30, 2018 - By 

    Rocky is a hero because he got up. And so is Sylvester Stallone. The franchise he’s been shepherding for half a century just keeps going. But sometimes it’s okay to just not take the fight, even when the crowd’s singing for it. 2015’s punchy, nimble Creed successfully re-orientated the Balboa brand around a new generation, Michael B. Jordan putting in a powerhouse performance as the son of Apollo. Hollywood franchises may be folding in on themselves like Inception’s boulevards, but thanks to the energies of regular collaborators Ryan Coogler and Jordan, Creed was the best example of a studio franchise embracing…

  • Shoplifters

    November 28, 2018 - By 

    When talking about great film-making legacies, there are few people alive that can rival Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda (The Third Murder, After The Storm) for consistency, quality and diversity. With his latest, Koreeda might just have intricately pieced together his finest movie to date, which is a feat in itself, given the stunning body of work that he has already got under his belt. As with all his films, Shoplifters is a gradual, deeply emotive, wonderfully humorous and highly intelligent tale that shows a side of Japan that is rarely seen with an empathetic eye. Shoplifters tells the story of…

  • Muse – Simulation Theory

    November 26, 2018 - By 

    From pollution and dirty talk to Harry Potter references and riffs straight out of ’90s Europop, Muse’s latest album, Simulation Theory, has the energetic, revolutionary spirit of an album that has no idea what or who it’s revolting against. Like many albums released by a British artist in the past year, critics have uncovered an elaborate anti-Brexit agenda somewhere amidst the circus of synthesisers. ‘Thought Contagion’ is one of the strongest tracks on the album – but that doesn’t say much – with Bellamy belting on about “fractured identities”, “infinite black skies’ and a society “bitten by false beliefs”. It’s so…

  • Katie Kim & The Crash Ensemble – Salt Interventions

    November 21, 2018 - By 

    Salt Interventions documents a superb live performance by Waterford musician Katie Kim as she teams up with the Crash Ensemble to revisit and reimagine her darkly brooding masterwork, Salt. Casting a new light on the 2016 album’s nine chilling tracks, Kim chooses to divest her compositions of the surging electric guitar figures and stormy electronic textures that were so central to their studio incarnations. Instead, she boils her song’s down to their base emotional bone broth, allowing her authoritative vocals to take centre stage as they unfurl over unfussy piano chords, leaving it to the orchestral 14-piece Crash Ensemble to provide…

  • Florence and the Machine @ 3Arena, Dublin

    November 21, 2018 - By 

    It’s been nine years since Florence Welch and her varied band of musicians burst into the mainstream with their orchestral indie pop and grew to extreme levels of fame. Since then, the indie pop phenomenon has released four well received albums and has developed a reputation for emotional, bombastic live shows. As an artist with a fairly traditional album cycle approach in an era of constant Spotify releases and attempts at social media virality, Welch’s work veers in and out of the spotlight every couple of years so it’s easy to forget just how impactful Florence And The Machine’s back…

  • The Meeting

    November 21, 2018 - By 

    An uncommon encounter conducted in the keys of grace and dignity, Irish drama The Meeting puts the mechanics of restorative justice on screen in the year’s most extraordinary blurring of fiction and reality. While walking from the bus stop to her Dublin family home one summer night, 21 year-old Ailbhe Griffith is suddenly grabbed from behind and dragged into bushes. Her attacker, who got off the bus behind her, then subjects her to a horrific sexual assault, biting, punching, scratching and penetrating her. “Not so glamorous now”, he hisses. Two passers-by intervene and chase off the perpetrator, very likely saving…