• Squarehead Announce New Album, Release New Single ‘Morning’

    June 19, 2019 - By 

    Hands down one of the country’s very best indie bands, Squarehead have announced details of their long-awaited new album. Six years on from the release of the stellar Respect, Roy Duffy, Ian McFarlane and Ruan Van Vliet will release the aptly-tiled High Time via Strange Brew Records on September 27th. Produced, once again, by Lesley Keye, the album – which is said to reflect the personal growth of the band over the last few years – also features keyboardist Ruadhan O’Meara of Magic Pockets and No Spill Blood. As well as the album’s artwork and tracklisting, stream new single, the…

  • This Month In Irish Music: May

    June 18, 2019 - By 

    In the latest of a new regular series, Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring Alarmist, Post-Punk Podge and the Technohippies, Gemma Dunleavy, April, Department of Forever and more. Citrus Fresh — DiCaprio The abrasive grain of the Limerick accent render it a useful weapon for aggressive, menacing rapping, as Hazey Haze’s attritional style has expertly shown. But Haze’s friend, collaborator and spiritual brother in Limerick’s DIY rap scene, Citrus Fresh, adopts a different mode on the tender, celestial ‘DiCaprio’: a break-up song, captured in low-fidelity hip-hop. A twinkling sample recalling the…

  • Watch: Panik Attaks – Terror

    June 6, 2019 - By 

    When a band or artist describe themselves as “no-nonsense” it usually means one thing: they are, consciously or otherwise, bound to a certain one-dimensionality, incapable of or unwilling to progress. Not so Dublin five-piece Panik Attaks. Comprising Rob Walsh of Cold Comfort, Republic of Loose’s Mick Pyro, Trevor Keogh of New Secret Weapon, Thumper’s Alex Harvey and Rian Trench of Solar Bears, the band’s brand of spitting, scuzzed-out, no-nonsense punk betrays cohesion, forward-moving spirit and fist-clenched intent in equal measure. New single ‘Terror’ takes that M.O. and runs with it. Featuring a stellar (not to mention instantly distinctive) video courtesy of SCAN, it’s a…

  • Watch: Girl Band – Shoulderblades

    June 6, 2019 - By 

    In their absence over the last couple of years, Girl Band’s reputation has only grown and grown. Much of that stemmed from uncertainty. Would we ever see them perform again? Would new music ever see the light of day? The afternoon of May 13th brought an answer. The Dara Kiely-fronted quartet – who, in such a short period of time, proved one of the most influential Irish guitar bands since My Bloody Valentine – would return with a new single, ‘Shoulderblades’. Sure enough, hyperspace near caved in on itself. Girl Band were back. Released today, it is, in no uncertain terms, a…

  • Video Premiere: Elaine Malone – My Baby’s Dead

    June 7, 2019 - By 

    The Cork music community is a bricolage of fascinating idiosyncrasy, but if there’s one through-line, it’s a hint of lysergic, and Limerick-born, Cork-based Elaine Malone‘s latest single is no exception. Where Malone has long been followed by the psych-folk tag, the psychedelia on her debut Land EP was implicit, bubbling under the surface in textural and compositional choices, as well as Sam Clague’s airy restraint on production. With Altered Hours’ Cathal MacGabhann engineering this time around, she’s accomplished her first bona fide electric wig-out in ‘My Baby’s Dead’ with spectacular finesse. We had a chat with Elaine about this hard left turn and how it came about.…

  • Premiere: Sun Mahshene – This Girl I Know

    May 31, 2019 - By 

    Is it towering, climactic psychgaze you’re after? Dublin’s Sun Mahshene has you covered. Out today, ‘This Girl I Know’ is the third single from their forthcoming debut album Contradictions and Tales of Fiction, set for release later this summer through Reckless Records. Its three guitars forging an impenetrable wall of sound, the song oozes Ride-worthy euphoria and the midtempo-swagger of Oasis at their most clamorous – think ‘Columbia’ via Creation Records at the end of a Danny Boyle film – helped in no small part by its production at Darklands Audio, Dublin. You can catch Sun Mahshene play The Thomas House on June 21 with Galants, or at Electric…

  • EP Stream: Gender Chores – Womensplain

    May 27, 2019 - By 

    At the heart of Bangor three-piece Gender Chores‘ fuzzed-out punk craft is ardent political consciousness and incisive activist spirit. Staring down and decimating everything from Northern Ireland’s archaic abortion laws, the patriarchy and more, new EP Womensplain is a self-assured and vital statement that, rather than meekly express the desire for change across the board, positively demands it. Stream the EP in full below.

  • Album Stream: Duellists – Into The Fade

    May 24, 2019 - By 

    Comprising members of NI alt-rock royalty in Throat and Element, the music of Portadown/Larne trio Duellists is full-blown, riff-fuelled testament to the power of perseverance and pushing forward. Off the back of lead singles ‘Into the Fade’ and the recently-released ‘Perspective’, their long-awaited debut album, Into The Fade, makes for a breakneck, twelve-track statement of intent across 35 minutes. Recorded by Caolán Austin at Smalltown America Studios in Derry and mixed by Kurt Ballou (Converge) at Godcity Studios, it’s a release that firmly reveals the threesome to be at the peak of their collective powers. Duellists play Dundalk’s The Spirit Store on…

  • Video Premiere: The Elephant Room – Juniper and Pine

    May 31, 2019 - By 

    Dublin-based indie-noise outfit The Elephant Room are one of a select number of DIY artists in Ireland assimilating a broad range of influences from the 60s through to the present year with complete seamlessness. We’re pleased to be premiering their sprawling new single ‘Juniper & Pine’, complete with the band’s self-made video. The song itself is an almost ten minute marriage of experimental noisecraft and lo-fi pop that somehow never outstays its welcome as ekes out new levels of its conceptual framework. Easing in with a Laurel Canyon-indebted neo-psych groove, its lysergic-soaked corners quickly darken into a clamorous sonic ego-death parallel, before returning to consensus reality as something familiar, yet altered.…

  • Watch: Sissy – Not In My Head

    May 27, 2019 - By 

    Dublin threesome Sissy know a thing or two about breakneck lo-fi punk. Take new single, ‘Not In My Head’. Racing out of the traps, almost bursting at the seams with pure-cut gusto, it’s a four-minute romp of stellar guitar shapes and feverish refrains. And what a video. Shot at Dalymount Park – the Phibsborough home of Bohemian F.C. – it captures Leigh, Michelle and Eoin well and truly in their element.