In 1988, Eddi Reader said goodbye to Gang Of Four and hit the pop jackpot as front woman of soulful pop newcomers Fairground Attraction. The band’s debut single Perfect grabbed the four-piece an unlikely but memorable number one, propelled by Reader’s distinctive vocals and the songwriting of Mark Nevin. Sadly the band chemistry turned out to be far from perfect, [...]

Who? Wet Nuns are a guitar and drums two-piece from Yorkshire wonderfully labeled ‘blues metal’, and performing with a similar stark set up to The White Stripes, if louder and a little less charming than the Americans. Hailing from Sheffield, Robert Graham (guitar) and Alexis Gotts (drums) are loud and strained, stating their diverse influences as “women, booze, death and [...]

 Desaparecidos in The Button Factory on February 7th 2013 It’s hard not to be charmed by Conor Oberst. One minute he’s scattering the occasional light political angle over songs that largely portray the most beautiful sentiments imaginable, desolation akin to squashing your heart through a tea strainer and then trying to recover it with pair of tweezers. Then he swings [...]

  Kendrick Lamar was in Vicar Street on January 14th 2013 and we had Michelle down the front snapping away. Since we didn’t have a reviewer we thought we’d stick in a stream of his album, ‘Good Kid, M.a.a.d City’ for your listening pleasure. The crowd looked to be having a phenomenal time from the pictures and videos we saw [...]

The Joy Formidable in The Academy on January 26th 2012 If pulsating début ‘The Big Roar’ – with its ballsy eight minute epic of an opening track – was The Joy Formidable’s early fulfillment of already much-hyped potential, newly-released follow up ‘Wolf’s Law’ was expected to mark their explosive route to the next level. It’s too early to conclusively comment on its [...]

Widely touted as Norway’s most exciting new musical export, south-coast punks Honningbarna are a young, fiercely political beast. Building their reputation on an intoxicatingly feisty live show, the four-piece are headed up by school-boy-styled singer and manic strummer of the most unlikely of punk instruments – the cello – Edvard Valberg. Having learnt about his musical leanings last time out, [...]

Who? Only Villagers’ Conor O’Brien’s next big thing, and the man should know. The singer took some time out during our recent interview just to rave about these newcomers from Limerick, telling us he can’t wait to bring them out on tour. They were a new name to us, but we went home, stuck their Soundcloud on, and we have [...]

Dropkick Murphys in Vicar Street on January 13th 2013 There comes a point when you have to ask yourself what Frank Turner does wrong in Ireland. Sure, he’s fairly quintessentially English, which is never likely to be a plus, and his politics – whilst hardly controversial unless you happen to be of a real conservative leaning – reflects that, but [...]

Who? Seemingly a trio of singer songwriters – all three offer vocals, and all three clutch guitars – Red Sail hail from Wexford, Navan and Roscommon, but base themselves largely in Dublin, where they’re starting to make an impact on the tough-to-break music scene. They are Sarah McWeeney (vocals and guitar), Simon Fitzpatrick (vocals, keys and guitar) and Dan Comerford [...]

It’s been an interesting year for Mystery Jets. Having recording arguably their best album to date – a refined, subtle blues-rock effort entitled ‘Radlands’ – they then had to face up to an entirely new style of live performance, having lost iconic member Kai Fish to family commitments immediately after recording finished. Despite the problems though, ‘Radlands’ has been a [...]