The 50 Irish Acts You Have To Hear
Hot Press picks the homegrown noisemakers who are just too good to let slip under the radar. We’ve left out those who’ve arguably already made it such as Maverick Sabre and Two Door Cinema Club. Instead we’ve focused on the newcomers who may not yet be in the limelight but from whom you’ll be hearing lots in 2012!
Celina Murphy, 12 Jan 2012
As Ireland’s most treasured art rocker, Patrick Kelleher is one of the more familiar faces on this line-up, earning regular applause for his atmospheric pop both at home and abroad. The multi-faceted 27 year-old can charm a crowd just as easily with an acoustic guitar as a full band of electronic whiz kids, and is as happy knocking out a Grace Jones or Frank Sinatra cover as performing his own material. 2009’s You Look Cold saw Kelleher And His Cold Dead Hands master the art of spook, while 2011’s Golden Syrup was ghostly in an entirely new way, brimming with echoey disco beats and floor-filling hooks.
Listen: to the incredible Golden Syrup at www.patrick-kelleher.bandcamp.com.
See: the brilliantly bizarre ‘Miracle Candle’ music video at www.tinyurl.com/cfd7u6l.
LEADERS OF MEN
With a name like Leaders Of Men, these five Tallaghtfornians were never lacking in confidence, but I’ll wager even the boys themselves didn’t see 2011 panning out like it did. Just six months after their first show, the straight-up indie rockers were playing to a crowd of 2,000 in the Guinness Hopstore as victors of the Arthur’s Day ‘Play On The Day’ competition, having captivated a team of judges with their no-frills stomp rock. Early recordings don’t do them justice – for the full LOM effect, see them in the flesh.
Listen: to pretty much everything they’ve got at www.leadersofmen.bandcamp.com.
See: them hold their own against Paolo Nutini,The Saturdays and Stereophonics at the Hopstore on Arthur’s Day at www.tinyurl.com/btwpqb2.
WE CUT CORNERS
It’s eternally shocking that We Cut Corners operate with only two people, frontman John Duignan (guitars/vox) and back man Conall O’Breachain (drums/vox), especially when you hear the oversized pop they produce. Having thrashed around the Dublin live circuit for three years, WCC finally got the kudos they deserved with the release of the whimsically-named Today I Realised I Could Go Home Backwards last year, an album so chock full of hooks, team Hot Press has been humming, whistling and singing it solidly since its release in November.
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