• The Altered Hours – On My Tongue EP

    December 8, 2017 - By 

    In many eyes the country’s best band, Cork’s The Altered Hours have just announced details of a forthcoming new EP, On My Tongue, and an accompanying European tour. The follow-up to their stellar 2016 full-length In Heat Not Sorry, the five-piece will release the four-track On My Tongue via Art For Blind Records and Penske Recordings early next year. A typically first-rate effort from the band, lead single ‘Open Wide’ premiered over on Clash. To coincide with the release, the band will also embark on a nine-date European tour across February-April, which incorporates shows on March 29th at Dublin’s DBD Venue, Letterkenny’s Regional Cultural Centre on 30th. Yours truly will…

  • Autre Monde – Autre Monde EP

    November 2, 2017 - By 

    We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Dublin quartet Autre Monde are one of the very best indie bands in the country at the moment – the proof being scattered all over their eponymous debut physical release, out now on borderline-iconic Dublin indie label Popical Island. Barely allowing us to sit upon their opening (acclaimed, by our reckoning) batch of singles – available on Bandcamp – the act are undeniably referential to contemporary pop & art-rock from the mid-sixties through today. Indeed, they make an art out of mining genuine originality from a breadth of genre touchstones like Talking Heads, Can or Pavement, simultaneously giving a nod to underground movements like CBGBs new wave…

  • Static Vision – What is and Now

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    We have to say – per capita, there’s no other town or city in Ireland producing DIY indie rock at the rate of Limerick. We’ve got Hot Cops in Belfast, Slouch in Dublin, but we can now happily add Static Vision‘s self-released 10-track debut to the likes of Eraser TV,  Cruiser, Anna’s Anchor, oh, and The Rubberbandits, to the city’s list of self-made accolades. Equal parts effervescent and slack, What is and Now is a stab of garage post-punk in the ’80s SST, Wipers-esque vein that could pass for an undiscovered proto-grunge gem from the midwest in 1989 fronted by a time-travelling Will Toledo, and having been…

  • Autumns – Dyslexia Tracks

    October 16, 2017 - By 

    Despite flecks of dust barely touching his debut album, Derry subgenre polymath Christian Donaghey, aka Autumns has announced yet another release on its way, in the form of his new Dyslexia Tracks EP, released on Belfast independent Touch Sensitive Records. Debut album Suffocating Brothers came out on Clan Destine Records at the end of September, with numerous remixes, cameos on specialist labels, and other releases bubbling to the top throughout this year. Autumns has never sounded as assured as he has recently, the creative trajectory approaching levels hinted at over the last few years. With his live show moving into a fully-fledged, techno-industrial piece of performance…

  • Autumns – Suffocating Brothers

    September 27, 2017 - By 

    Since starting out some time ago as a D.I.Y. shoegaze/garage-noise outfit, Derry’s Christian Donaghey has refused to sit in any one place for too long with his ongoing project, Autumns, releasing and echewing subgenre records for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Over the last couple of years, he’s grown into himself, really finding his place with his most recent EP. Finally, he’s released his debut full length, Suffocating Brothers on renowned Glasgow label Clan Destine after being written & recorded in the latter half of 2016. This material sees him continue to bring the intensely visceral Roland-fuelled rhythms of industrial & techno he’s adopted in recent times, melded…

  • Video Premiere: Tuath – Cuz Why!?

    September 25, 2017 - By 

    Arguably the northern province’s foremost purveyors of hepped-up-on-goofballs psychedelia, the bilingual Tuath, have a new single, ‘Cuz Why?!’ and we’re delighted to premiere it here. As opposed to the usual shoegaze & trip-hop-laced excursions the band are used to – watch the video for their last single, ‘Youth‘ – filtered through frontman Robert Mulhern’s psychedelic lens, this song adds post-punk to their considerable palette. Mulhern has drawn a consistent thematic throughline through Tuath, of the questioning of accepted ideals & organised ideology. They continue to effuse their worldview with a half-maniacal cackle, half-nihilistic-shrug, helped along by its kitchen sink absurdist imagery. He says of the…

  • Eraser TV – Buzzfeed Depression Quiz

    August 3, 2017 - By 

    Just released is Limerick post-punk noise-pop act Eraser TV‘s debut EP, the wryly-titled Buzzfeed Depression Quiz, that tells you all you need to know about the wry wit of the trio. Featuring zero short, snappy numbers and a nine-minute epic celebration of languor, no compromise has been made on the EP, filled with all the trimmings, creases, and slightly-off guitar lines you’d hope from a band with nothing to lose. Buzzfeed Depression Quiz is a completely unselfconscious release, and is all the better for it. The EP was recorded and produced by Chris Quigley, self-released and available on Bandcamp on a pay-what-you-like basis. Stream below:…

  • The Jimmy Cake – Tough Love

    June 22, 2017 - By 

    Experimental kosmiche post-punks The Jimmy Cake release their sixth album Tough Love on July 14 through the respected Irish indie label Penske Recordings. Formed as a 10-piece in Dublin back in 2000 from the ashes of experimental noiseniks Das Madman, they’ve had a revolving lineup, recording – the last being 2015’s Master. Tough Love was written for a one-off performance in Dublin arts space The Joinery in 2015, with two distinct movements and styles – blending their usual krauty psychedelia with some stoner groove. Check out ‘Observatory Destroyer‘. The Jimmy Cake launch Tough Love at the Grand Social on July 8, and tickets are priced at €13 from Billetto,…

  • Hiva Oa – Mk 2 (Part 2)

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    Brooding, atmospheric Belfast-based duo Hiva Oa release their new EP, Mk II (Part 2), following up on last year’s in-parenthesis Part 1. Based around core members Stephen Houlihan & Christine Tubridy, with outside help from Matthew Collings, Daithi McNabb & Chris McCorry, the pair lived in Edinburgh for several years before returning to Ireland and instilling new life into the project. Hiva Oa’s recent material has taken some cues in mood from post-punk & experimental electronica, filtered through the lens of contemporary indie music, not without its pop merit – paving a sonic path not unlike that of latter day Radiohead. The EP displays a breadth of unrestricted instrumentation & arrangements by band’s…

  • Guilty Optics – Colossal Velocity

    March 28, 2017 - By 

    Dublin-based riffy post-punk trio Guilty Optics release their long-awaited debut album, Colossal Velocity on March 31 on vinyl & digital download. Colossal Velocity was recorded at Dublin’s Hellfire Studios with vintage gear by San Diego producer Ben Moore, best known for his work with Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt & Ravi Shankar, amongst many others. Tellingly, they’re a dischordant, aggressive burst of noise-rock tinged post-punk by way of the early-to-mid ’90s, à la Drive Like Jehu. Formed in 2008 by Alan Finnerty & Peter Lee as a duo, they played under the name Bend This, Uri Geller, before expanding their lineup and shifting to the band…