• Video Premiere: That Snaake – Go Bricker!

    May 23, 2016 - By 

    Like The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster covering late-80s The Fall, ‘Go Bricker!’ by Dublin “recessionary post-punk” band That Snaake is a vehement, breakneck effort that tells the story of a drinking session that derails and ends up in an armed coup which overthrows the government and sees random sesh-mots on Ketamine put in charge of executing the entire fisheries board (remember: your imagination is everything, folks). That Snaake’s first single, the track – heavily based around the themes of drug abuse, religious oppression and poorly conceived guerrila coups – now comes with a video to boot, marking the remastered edition of the band’s wonderfully frenzied debut…

  • Premiere: Gross Net – Outstanding Debt

    May 23, 2016 - By 

    As one quarter of globetrotting Belfast band Girls Names, Philip Quinn has rarely been off the road recently. Currently enjoying some repose before a new string of dates with Girls Names in Europe throughout the Summer – including a highly-anticipated set at Electric Picnic on September 3 – Quinn’s attention is currently fixed on his work as Gross Net, namely Outstanding Debt, a new seven-track release which we’re pleased to premiere here. The first release for Austerity Drive, it’s a compilation of material mostly drawn from “several aborted releases” that eschews Quinn’s usual guitar-based approach in favour of inducing a netherworld of varyingly…

  • Watch: Slomatics – Electric Breath

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    Not merely one of the best heavy bands in Ireland, Slomatics are undoubtedly right up there with the finest harbingers of brain-bendingly, bone-crushingly hefty sludge-doom anywhere on the face of the planet. With their perfectly-honed live show at its razor-sharp best and a new studio album, Future Echo Returns, set for release via Black Box Records in September, the three-piece have re-emerged with a typically obliterating new track ‘Electric Breath’. The sonic equivalent of self-exorcism in slow-motion, it trounces in a way and with such clinically resounding execution that Slomatics and few others like them can muster. Created by Dermot Faloon,…

  • Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    Will Toledo sings “I’m so sick of: fill in the blank” on album opener ‘Fill in the Blank’ and that line sums up much of the content on Car Seat Headrest’s first full-band studio release. That line also could sum up the last week for Toledo too as he’s been encumbered by a copyright issue involving a sample of The Cars’ single ‘Just What I Needed’. In what could easily have encumbered a songwriter used to complete creative control and in his own words “working on an album right up to its drop date”. Toledo maintains his “everything is done…

  • Video Premiere: Oh Boland – Where’s The Beach?

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    Ask anybody who knows their lo-fi from their Lulu, Tuam noise-pop trio Oh Boland are a rare breed of brilliant. Having first caught our attention with their perfectly ramshackle debut EP Oh! back in early 2013, they’ve steadily grown to be one of our very favourite “rural Irish kitchen sink bottle fed rock n’ roll” (their words, not ours – fitting, though. Very.) Accompanied by a short Irish tour in June (see dates below), the band’s mad infectious new single ‘Where’s The Beach’ – recorded by Liam Day at his Tuam home studio – will feature on four-track split cassette A Litany of Failures, also featuring Shrug Life, That Snaake and Junk…

  • Mark Pritchard – Under the Sun

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    Over the course of two decades and with a myriad of monikers under the bridge, Mark Pritchard’s albums, short releases and collaborations have ventured from genre to genre with consistent zeal and originality. From his early ambient work with Tom Middleton as Global Communications to his equally dizzying veers into footwork, hip-hop, house, and grime, Pritchard’s music has been defined by its subtle complexity and shifts in identity and artistic base. Since 2013 however, Pritchard has settled for his releases being put out under his own name; something which, despite seeming like but a small change, has led to a…

  • Islands – Taste

    May 18, 2016 - By 

    From the ashes of The Unicorns came Islands, one sonically eccentric band’s demise giving rise to a new vehicle for mainstay Nick Thorburn’s endless imagination for quirky melodies and wry lyricism. Taste marks the sixth album for the band, but what is most remarkable about this release is that it’s being released simultaneously with their seventh album, Should I Remain Here At Sea? – our review of which you can read here. So, two records, one release date; the former an exploration of synth-based electro pop, the latter an indie pop record more in keeping with Islands’ invigorating debut album from 2006. Drum machines, programming and…

  • Islands – Should I Remain Here at Sea?

    May 18, 2016 - By 

    It was a bittersweet thing when The Unicorns disbanded in 2004 after releasing one of the most fun records by anyone, ever. The trio’s paths diverged. Alden Penner trucked on as a solo artist before forming Clues a few years later, while Nicholas Thorburn and Jamie Thompson kept ‘er lit, forming two groups at once – the short-lived hip-hop outfit Th’ Corn Gangg, and Islands. One thing that was clear from Islands’ debut Return To The Sea and their subsequent run of records was that The Unicorns’ eccentricities, about-turns, and canny knack for an earworm were as much down to his colleagues – and Thorburn in…

  • Premiere: Strength – The Crying Game (Record Store Gay)

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    One of our ones to watch in 2016, Derry’s Strength have really made their mark on the live circuit throughout the country over the last few months. Set to continue in that fashion with a show alongside Temper Drone at Whelan’s in Dublin on May 20, the Rory Moore-fronted outfit are also one of several Irish acts set to feature on this year’s Record Store Gay compilation, which is set for release – as ever – via the mighty Little Gem tomorrow (Friday, May 20). And what a cover they opted for: a synth-pop rendering of Dave Berry’s ‘The Crying Game’. A handful…

  • Premiere: Franklyn – Pleasure

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    Even if you’ve only had a passing interest in Northern Irish music™ over the last few years there’s a strong chance you’ll already be somewhat acquainted with Belfast quartet Franklyn. Three-quarters of the sadly departed General Fiasco, the Owen Strathern-fronted outfit recently re-animated in style with single ‘We Don’t Want To Live’, an emphatic debut track “about people having the life beaten out of them, feeling like there is nothing you can do to change, losing your fight and not even being that bothered about it.” An equally assured effort clocking in at under three minutes, new track ‘Pleasure’ effortlessly underlines the Belfast band’s mission to write a…