• Video Premiere: Shifting – The Bland Leading the Bland

    July 21, 2020 - By 

    A month ahead of the release of what will surely be one of Ireland’s essential punk records of 2020, Shifting have just shared with us the video for ‘The Bland Leading the Bland’. An ideal introduction to the trio, who formed in 2016, and include members of No Spill Blood & Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst other noisemakers par excellence. The video a sub-ninety second microcosm of their repetitious, yet spontaneous dissonance, and squalid, darkly comic worldview, conjuring everything  from Unwound to Death Grips. The second in a series of videos to accompany their debut LP, it chronicles the time Matt ‘Uncle Dad’ Hedigan…

  • Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • Premiere: Gas Hands – I’m Not In Love (With You)

    March 5, 2020 - By 

    Been missing that singular blend of melodic punk rock and post-hardcore that NI – not least the North-West – has mastered for over two decades? Derry-based trio Gas Hands are here to sort you out with their latest single, ‘I’m Not In Love (With You)’. Formed by frontman & guitarist Dylan Bradley & drummer Michael Brown, formerly of Lost Avenue, they’re joined by Mosmo Strange/Calling All Horses guitarist Nolan Donnelly on bass. Recorded & mixed at Smalltown America Studios by Caolan Austin, the trio’s economical, tightly knit release strikes a midpoint between signature North-West punk and the vitality of a young band hitting their stride. Gas Hands kick off their…

  • Premiere: Casavettes – Imposter Syndrome

    December 4, 2019 - By 

    DIY LK‘s resident emos-in-chief Casavettes round out a year that’s seen them tour the length of the land on the back of their debut album, Senselessness. One of the most prolific acts in the most prolific music city on the island, they’re back with new single ‘Imposter Syndrome’ – a 2nd wave homage which firmly posits them as potentially the finest of their ilk in Ireland. Like Senselessness, the single was engineered and produced by Mícheál Keating of Bleeding Heart Pigeons. Artwork comes from Eilis Mahon (Girlfriend/icebear). Frontman Diarmuid Ó Sé told us more about how the track came together: “I started writing it directly after the album…

  • Video Premiere: Casavettes – I’m Not Here, I’m Somewhere Else

    February 22, 2019 - By 

    It’s just five days from the release of Limerick emo trio Casavettes‘ debut album, Senselessness. One of the pillars of the DIY LK community, new single ‘I’m Not Here, I’m Somewhere Else’ is a low-key diversion from their anthemic early-Biffy inspired work, with its glacial guitar conjuring myopic images of that post-relationship confusion and detachment. Tastefully shot by the band and edited by Colm O’Shea, its non-linear monochrome video was inspired in part by All This Can Happen by Siobhan Davies and David Hinton, revealing lived layers of undefined beginnings and endings by dividing the frame in two. Artwork for both ‘I’m Not Here…’ & Senseless comes from Laya Meabhdh Kenny, with…

  • Premiere: Mob Wife – Captain Care A Lot & Hellsong

    February 8, 2019 - By 

    Following the release of debut single ‘Warm Water’ in August, Belfast’s Mob Wife are back with new double A-side Captain Care A Lot / Hellsong. Recorded by Chris Ryan at Start Together Studios, with striking artwork by Billy Woods, the release strikes a midpoint between the dissonant fury of Metz or Unwound, and the melodic vulnerability of Pile. A contrasting couplet, ‘Captain Care A Lot’ continuing down the narrative & noise-ridden path of twentysomething angst and confusion laid by ‘Warm Water’, sardonically chronicling mass depersonalisation as a result of social media. ‘Hellsong’ is a more inward-looking exploration of disintegration, through the maelstrom of substance abuse, isolation and depression; in eschewing the…

  • Premiere: Mob Wife – Warm Water

    August 17, 2018 - By 

    In the vein of past noise rock/post-hardcore outfit PigsAsPeople, and following the closure of Chris Leckey’s emo-hued dark alt. country project Via:Barvikha, he returns to the idea of the power trio. Today, we introduce you to Mob Wife, a new project that carries the heft of the former without losing the subtlety of the latter. The band’s caliber isn’t under question, with one of Belfast’s busiest drummers in Gascan Ruckus‘ Mark McDaid and producer & Ghost Office/Pale Lanterns‘ Carl Small on bass. ‘Warm Water’ is characteristic Leckey – blackly comic in its nihilism, the song tackles the 9-5 office grind that Dolly loved so well – stale coffee…

  • Video Premiere: Bokotono – You’re Looking A Little Rough Around the Edges

    August 10, 2018 - By 

    Did you catch Electric Dreams last year? It was an uneven, but effective rendering Philip K. Dick’s warped simulacrum of reality. Know what’s not uneven? The new video for Bokotono‘s latest single, ‘You’re Looking a Little Rough Around the Edges’, which we’re premiering here today. Formed in West Ireland in 2017, Bokotono are a trio informed by the frantic, but composition-conscious heavy post-hardcore of the likes of Botch, Daughters & Fall of Troy, as well as peers like ASIWYFA, Alpha Male Tea Party & Gallops, with whom they’ve shared stages. As chance would have it, their Venn diagram has a not-insignificant crossover with one of our longstanding favourite Irish music collectives, the…

  • Tethers – Skinwalker

    April 4, 2018 - By 

    Lisburn-based post-hardcore outfit Tethers are set to release their debut EP Skinwalker via Swallow Song Records. While retaining the kind of pop inclination that made Biffy Clyro household names, the trio channel Derry’s Jetplane Landing, and mathier elements of the post-hardcore sound – the likes of which made Faraquet such an incredibly instinctive, yet compositionally complex outfit. Recorded by Chris Ryan, the EP gets its title from a term in Navajo folklore that denotes a shape-shifting witch, which they’re re-envisioning as ‘a future slang for artificially-enhanced humanoids’, an aspect of the band’s outlook, which – in a way that would please Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis…

  • Video Premiere: Casavettes – Winter Smoke

    March 1, 2018 - By 

    Alongside cornerstones of a Limerick DIY scene that’s organically developed over the last few years, threaded with the spirit of independence shared by Anna’s Anchor, Cruiser, Eraser TV and Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Casavettes have shared with us the video for new single, ‘Winter Smoke’. Channelling the similarly independent – and undeniably stronger – recesses of the Biffy Clyro back catalogue and more recent guitar-led post-hardcore & emo, it’s another step up for the outfit who debuted back in 2015. It’s also further evidence of the organic development of an integral, genuine community founded by artists and fans in a corner of Ireland that’s too often overlooked. ‘Winter Smoke’ was…