"...no-one will accuse One Night Only of re-inventing the wheel, but their sure-footed songcraft, and earnest, unfussy delivery earmarks them as potential upper echelon chart botherers."
If you’re still on the lookout for someone capable of inheriting the weighty mantle of those legendary young soul rebels Dexys Midnight Runners, then look no further.
This album, the follow-up to MC Lethal Bizzle's debut Against All Oddz, offers a frenetic trip through his hi-energy, skittish and colourful take on grime, and neatly encapsulates why he has been earmarked for crossover appeal.
1997’s magpie-like gathering of string, mandolin, harmonica and piano flourishes creates an often dazzling pallete, used to brilliant effect on ‘Grace’, ‘Tennessee Song’ and ‘Droppin’ Times’.
Garlanded with muchos praise by the hipster cliques for their edgy electro-pop, Cansei De Ser Sexy arrived in Cork for a Heineken Green Sphere’s event promising a riot of colour and noise.
Canadian punk-poppet Avril Lavigne, 22, is a married woman but her concerns are very much of the lip-curled adolescent if this, her third album, is anything to go by.
The Twang are essentially a derivative mix of early Stone Roses, ecstatic Happy Mondays, and the laddish posturing of Mike Skinner. That’s not to say it’s not entertaining.
On Saltbreakers – Veirs was originally a geologist by trade – she maintains the momentum of her last effort. But this is a more polished and fuller sounding album.
The MC – straight outta… er… Wexford (and why not?) – is a lippy customer, full of the same recycled braggadocio, tough guy, chin-out posturing, and boil-in-the-bag misogyny favoured in the world of commercial hip hop.
Perennial Cork favourites the Frank And Walters are back. A near death experience followed by period of reflection, then a slate cleaning triple album of odds and ends (Souvenirs) and now their first studio album in six years. It’s all come full circle: the guys find themselves at square one, making infectious, charming and effervescent indie-rock.
The Malahide four-piece hit pay dirt in the summer with the chart-and-radio playlist hogging ‘Reconnect’; the album We Thrive On Big Cities is consummate and a refined debut, fizzing with sharp guitars and sharper bon mots. The frisson of anticipation inside Cork’s sold out Cyprus Avenue is therefore not a surprise. What is a surprise is the guarded and detached nature of their performance.
Skoda Mluvit has patches of incoherency and over-ambition, but it’s a testament to Dresslehaus’ musical dexterity that he manages to stitch together such a rich and varied sonic tapestry.
The night’s undoubted highlight is ‘Gold Digger’ which, combined with an apoplectic crowd and an eye-popping lighting display, reaches an apogee that maybe only Kanye can attain.
Other People’s Problems bathes the listener in anodyne, no-more-tears formula wishy-washyness. The problem lies in balancing this Radox-rock with enough vitality to not make it veer towards the insipid. The Upper Room stay on the right side, but only just.
The highlight of the Cork leg of JD's trawl for Ireland's best unsigned act came when Nassau presented a polished set of psychedelic pop numbers that brought the evening to a deliriously woozy climax.
He may well go on to produce better work, but Live At The Olympia captures a wonderful hour or so of music, during which Damien Dempsey is king of all he surveys.
Psapp’s airy concoctions may be a little too delicate for those with a more robust palette, but the records of such mischievous imagination and careworn beauty like this should really be savoured.
Credit to Black for producing an engaging and sprightly record which skips between alt-country and acoustic pop and reminds us of his capricious talents.
No, not a bunch of stetson wearing Tennessee-ans drinking whiskey out of boots, but rather the annual Jack Daniels-sponsored nationwide gigfest, which hopes to unearth some of the country’s nascent rock 'n' roll talent. The JD Set was holed up in Dolan’s for the night, where the four native bands on offer were hoping to provide some succour for a crowd sodden by the god-awful April showers.
Morrissey. Avatar of melancholic self-pity, sexual ambiguity, and intense misanthropy. Well, bollocks to that. Somewhere along the road to perdition he has experienced a Damascene conversion. Tonight he stalks the stage like a latter day Errol Flynn, and with his cabal of pink-shirted buccaneers beside him, parades his new, invigorated self.
Maxïmo Park could have easily disappeared into the slew of angular, affected guitar bands that emerged in the UK last year, but two factors helped them stay on the muso radar. One was them being the first non-electronica signing to the unspeakably hip Warp label. The second was their enigmatic frontman Paul Smith with his candid/overwrought lyrics – whichever side of the fence you sit on – and labour intensive stage workout.
