• Years & Years – Palo Santo

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    In 1987, the Pet Shop Boys released ‘It’s A Sin’, detailing Neil Tennant’s relationship with his own sexuality and the sense of shame that came with it. It was years after the singer publicly came out. Thankfully, these days, singing about sex and love outside of heterosexual constraints isn’t a rarity. So many songs in the pop zeitgeist have gone beyond heteronormative boundaries, but still, it is often treated as something forbidden, experimental, taboo and something explicitly, solely sexual. Think Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’ or Demi Lovato’s ‘Cool for the Summer.’ Years & Years’ Olly Alexander joyfully takes…

  • The 8 Best Sets at Townlands Carnival 2018

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    Cork’s Townlands Carnival returned another year filled with the brightest and best in upcoming Irish music, as well as a handful of international names. It’s a formula that works superbly with Townlands, which made for an incredibly enjoyable, relaxed experience that drew a highly eclectic crowd and kept all tastes satiated. These were our highlights. Words by Kelly Doherty HappyAlone Closing up the relaxed Friday night of Townlands were Cork natives HappyAlone over at the Rising Sons stage. Having recently received a lot of attention due to their live shows and impressive social media presence, the band are a clear headliner…

  • Ministry w/ Chelsea Wolfe @ Tivoli Theatre, Dublin

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    In case you had any doubt in your mind, witches are indeed real and they can cast powerful spells as Chelsea Wolfe proved on Tuesday evening. As the 34-year-old Californian takes to the Tivoli’s stage, she seems awkward, or even a little clumsy at first. As she walks to the front of the stage, with the lights still up, she gives a small wave and smile to the audience. She seems more shy than one might have imagined. Then, the lights go down and that shyness is devoured by the waves of noise that follow. As the pulsing terror that…

  • Body/Head – The Switch

    July 24, 2018 - By 

    “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting” – Brian Eno, Music For Airports linear notes If you’re a fan of mid 1990s, alternative rock bass players named Kim, then this year has been a real treat. Kim Deal released the wonderful All Nerve with The Breeders and now Kim Gordon, formerly of the parish Sonic Youth, has gifted us her latest broadcast: Body/Head’s The Switch. The group, completed by Bill Nace, are an experimental noise duo whose work is focused on…

  • Panic! At The Disco – Pray For the Wicked

    July 23, 2018 - By 

    Remember that ‘I Like Me’ song from the Simpsons episode with Hank Scorpio? Imagine if Frank Sinatra collaborated with the Chainsmokers to make a Broadway version of that song. Once you imagine that, you’ll have a bit of an idea as to the level of absurdity we’re dealing with here. Pray for the Wicked is the sixth studio album from Panic! At the Disco. Riddled with pop culture references and sabotaged by extraneous high notes, this effort – which comes 13 years after Bradon Urie and co’s breakthrough A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out –  is basically everything we’ve come…

  • The Devil’s Doorway

    July 20, 2018 - By 

    A pregnant woman in chains; the off-screen wailing of child spirits; close-ups of the Virgin Mary with lines of blood down her cheeks, weeping at the sights she sees. The Devil’s Doorway, a Northern Irish horror which last week screened in the Galway Film Fleadh, and received American release through IFC Midnight, is an efficient frightener with local colour and a dense, tight atmosphere of suffering, penance and punishment. You might call it Catholic guilt. The debut film from Belfast writer and director Aislinn Clarke, who lectures in Creative Writing at Queen’s University, and the first NI Screen-backed feature from…

  • Skyscraper

    July 19, 2018 - By 

    The studio summer blockbuster, a reliable genre of more!, seems the perfect fit for the bulking, hulking anatomy of Dwayne Johnson. In everything he does, The Rock operates in Trumpian economies of size: the largest pecs, the highest reps, the most humility. His last studio film, Rampage, released only three months ago, saw him partner with a gargantuan gorilla to fight Boulevard-sized beasties. Johnson’s latest, Skyscraper, casts him as a security expert forced to save his family from not just a burning building, but a building that happens to be the tallest one in the world. Yuuge. The architectural ambition…

  • Various Artists – A Litany of Failures Vol. II

    July 17, 2018 - By 

    To be a contemporary “independent” band in Ireland isn’t merely a genre categorisation, but a complex creative actuality. There’s often a socio-economic subtext to the term, as happens when a multitude of younger or less experienced creatives don’t have the resources to view music as a full-time pursuit just yet. They must therefore look elsewhere to meet the frequently unforeseen costs that stack up when making music – gear upkeep, travel, recording/rehearsal space fees, etc. This can lead to an absence of parity at the level of industry power relations. Simply look at the cultural-economic logic followed by certain festivals…

  • At The Drive-In w/ Brand New Friend @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    When Brand New Friend take to the stage of Vicar Street, the four fresh-faced Northerners unleash a wall of noise on the reasonably-sized audience that has congregated to cheer them on. The Castlerock four-piece have been causing a stir in the Irish music scene over the past year, playing a hugely successful set at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend and releasing their debut album, Seatbelts For Aeroplanes. Onstage, they have a definite sense of self-assurance, and it’s well deserved. Kicking off with their song ‘Cold’, the groups influences are immediately evident. Think Weezer featuring Hayley Williams and some questionable (but forgivable) synth lines. They’re…

  • Eugene Onegin @ The Grand Opera House

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    ‘Where are they now, those golden days of my youth?’ The past hangs over the characters in Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin like a veil. The folly of youth and the burning shame of costly pride are not dimmed by the passage of time, but are instead, only magnified. Early in Scottish Opera’s vibrant production there is a potent sign that the bucolic surroundings of harvest time and the budding spirit of spring love might soon be dispelled.  As Madame Larina (Alison Kettlewell} and Nurse Filipyevna (Anne-Marie Owens) reminisce about the courtships of their youth, and as the matriarch’s daughters…