• Therapy? – Disquiet

    April 9, 2015 - By 

    When talk first began of a sequel to ‘Troublegum’, the 1994 punk-metal opus that made legends of Co. Antrim trio Therapy?, your writer couldn’t help but feel pangs of uncertainty. From a band that over the course of 25 years plowed a fiercely independent furrow, and did so while thinking about ten steps ahead of the musical sentiment of the time, a move for nostalgia would be surely a massive anti-climax after producing two career-defining albums in ‘Crooked Timber’ and ‘A Brief Crack of Light’. Is it? Well… the jury is still out after a fortnight’s constant listening, which, for…

  • AAA: Therapy? @ Mandela Hall, Belfast

    November 17, 2014 - By 

    In an AAA (Access All Areas) set Shaun Neary shoots Northern Irish alt-rock legends Therapy? before, during and after their spectacular Troublegum set at Belfast’s Mandela Hall on Saturday night as part of this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize.

  • Northern Ireland Music Prize 2014 – Therapy? to perform Troublegum

    August 27, 2014 - By 

    Following last year’s successful Northern Irish Music Prize ceremony, it has been announced that the second annual event will take place in the Mandela Hall in the Queen’s University Students’ Union on November 15. The ceremony awards a prize to the best Northern Irish album of the last year as voted for by a number of local media and industry professionals. Last year, Foy Vance won the album of the year prize with his excellent Joy Of Nothing, a strong album among many worthy contenders. Alt. metal trio Therapy? play their million-selling, Mercury Prize-shortlisted 1994 classic Troublegum LP in its entirety at the awards show on…

  • Interview: Therapy?

    March 31, 2014 - By 

    Following on from Mike McGrath Bryan’s dotingly extensive Complete Guide To Therapy? over the last seven days, we’re happy to present our feature-length Q+A with the band’s boundlessly inimitable frontman, Andy Cairns. Featuring some superb photos by Liam Kielt, Brian Coney talked to Cairns about the brand new reissues of their albums Troublegum and Infernal Love, plans to tour the reissued material later in the year, how things are going with album number fifteen and much more besides. Hi Andy. First things first: it is, of course, two decades since the release of Troublegum. One suspects it doesn’t quite feel like…

  • The Complete Guide to Therapy?: Part 2

    March 25, 2014 - By 

    PREVIOUSLY: Guitarist Andy Cairns and drummer Fyfe Ewing meet at a Battle of the Bands and start jamming after talking about bands they like in common. First demo tape 30 Seconds of Silence showcases a wide variety of ideas, and soon they’re joined by Ewing’s classmate Michael McKeegan, for the recording of second demo tape Meat Abstract. The intrepid trio set off on tour around Ireland, and with the release of their debut single, also entitled Meat Abstract, the UK. While in London, the band gets airplay from John Peel, and begins to garner label interest. Signing with Wiiija, Therapy?…

  • Twenty Years of Troublegum

    February 7, 2014 - By 

    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…