• Twenty Years of Troublegum

    Set for an expansive three-disc deluxe reissue in March, the gamechanging Troublegum by Northern Irish alt-rock heroes Therapy? was unleashed twenty years ago today, back in the thoroughly transitional musical milieu of early 1994. An impassioned and inexorable fourteen-track masterstroke borne from social disillusion and the laws of unspoken smalltown psychosis, it saw frontman Andy Cairns, bassist Michael “The Evil Priest” McKeegan and drummer Fyfe Ewing propelled from emerging contenders to bona fide alternative rock demigods. From the gloriously demented ‘Knives’ to closing rampage ‘Brainsaw’, Troublegum forged Cairns’ deeply intelligent and masterfully sardonic lyrics, Ewing’s mighty rhythmic élan and a breathless deluge of earworming, generation-defining pop-punk hooks coloured…