Irish hip hop is on the rise! Along with better known acts like The Rubberbandits, Messiah J & The Expert and Super Extra Bonus Party there’s an emerging scene that’s managed to shrug off the countless weak attempts at reproducing their American peer’s style that we had to suffer through in the early noughties. Now we have a refreshing take [...]

What ever it is about Northern Ireland, they just can’t seem to stop producing incredible hard rock bands. Like Galway and hard-core, Northern Ireland is cutting the next wave of British heavy metal all by itself with bands like Million $ Reload, The Answer and now Trucker Diablo laying the foundations for what could hopefully become the next big scene. [...]

Looking for something provocative to round the weekend off? Then it’s time you discovered P.A.L.A.S. Not so much a band as a one man techno wizard intent on raising the machines and laying waste to this planet we call earth. Their latest offering of artificial intelligence comes in the form of Star Shade, a nifty four track EP steeped in [...]

Formed in 2009, Crow Black Chicken are a Dublin based blues rock three-piece and 2011 saw the release of their début EP, Organic. If you’re looking for a fresh slice of smoky vocals, buttered guitars and some fine blues then look no further. Four incredibly well written and preformed tunes that are guaranteed to please all fans of music. The [...]

One of the major low points of the past ten years in music is artists over reliance on very melancholic, non-eventful music that massively lacks the passion, emotion and, sad to say; talent that’s required to reproduce the power their predecessors were able to conjure. This is an all too common trend around the western world and Ireland is no [...]

Hailing from Ballycastle, Co. Antrim; Event Horses are tipped as one of the next big acts to emerge out of the growing hard-core / alt-rock scene in the north. Despite only forming in mid-2010, the three piece have already released two EP’s and played an impressive list of live shows around the country. Anyone who’s heard their debut E.P. Faces [...]

Summer’s here again (honest, don’t believe the weather) and that means festival fever is upon us. Up and down the country tents are being dusted off, wellies are selling out and people are spending small fortunes on smokes, crisps and enough pallets of Tesco’s finest to get the Asian continent drunk. In that spirit, Goldenplec decided to have a talk [...]

The Rouce EP is the debut release from Donegal / Derry young upstarts, Mojo GoGo, and if the name don’t grab you, the tunes will. Despite a murky, typically young start on opening track, ‘This Isn’t Love’, there’s enough here to let you know that Mojo GoGo have a knack for quirky, ska driven indie. ‘Prison Shoes’ follows, as does [...]

Better late than never and when something’s good, it’s always worth saying. Quantify Direction is the debut EP (or, ‘first offering of artificial intelligence’, as the band like to put it) of up and coming Irish act P.A.L.A.S. The beat act keep a low profile but after releasing Quantify Direction last year, the band have gone on to release a [...]

Review by Robert O’Connor Sometimes as a critic you feel a sting of guilt when you’re forced to give a band a bad review. It’s true, we don’t just write off bands without a second thought. Generally music critics strive to find something worth praising in a bands recordings to the point that the glorifying three paragraphs detailing how well [...]