Inevitably iconoclastic obituaries terminated? Good. Autopsies – will have to be personal – your own moments in the sanatorium of Joy Division music, encouraged by sharp note sounds.
The grim labouring of heavy machinery. The voice of a drugged god. The bottom falling out of heaven. If these are a few of your favourite things, step right up.
The original is a tight slice of Joy Division-aping electronica. George Issakidis injects some menace with his schaffel-ish mix – spitting hi-hats, brooding bassline and morse code FX result in an intriguing roller.
No, this is not a cover of the incessantly catchy festival anthem by The Automatic. Rather ‘Monster’ is the slick and punchy debut from Dublin-based The Spikes. Propelled by a sparse rhythm, singer Tom Dunne (no, not him) delivers a vocal performance that puts one in mind of a stripped-down The Zutons, with more than a hint of Joy Division.
This soundtrack is essentially a collage of the work of three bands - Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays - with a few house tunes and the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Clash thrown in for good measure
‘The band most likely to do a Franz Ferdinand in 2005!’ proclaims a UK music weekly. This single tells a different story. Bloc Party go one further than the usual flotsam of Joy Division-inspired noiseniks and combine their angular guitar-based funk/punk with a certain amount of heartfelt sentiment.
Like Humanzi, Limerick’s Vesta Varro show much promise. Their much anticipated double A-side has been delayed as interest in the UK has grown. With a sound taking in early U2, Joy Division, Wire and The Cure, they fit snugly into the current scene. Sharp, polished guitar hooks are punctuated by a strong chorus. At times ‘Blue Mirror Boy’ evokes memories of Woodstar’s wonderful ‘Dumb Punk Song’. An assured debut and a band to keep tabs on over 2006.
With this, their third single, Director prove once again why their album reached No. 2 way-back-when in ’06 – although those clever enough to have seen them live won’t need any more evidence. Catchier than a cold in January, ‘Leave It To Me’ sees Michael Moloney’s distinctive voice (if you’ve never heard Joy Division, Interpol or Editors) plod along smoothly over controlled guitars and a no-nonsense drum rhythm, building up to a sing-along-tastic chorus – warning: may get stuck in head! – before turning up the guitars and going all rocky on us for a bit. While not outstanding, this does exactly what it says on Director’s tin: popular rock music.
As Joy Division, and then New Order, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris have been responsible for some of the most spellbinding, groundbreaking and downright brilliant music of the past twenty-five years. With their new album Waiting For The Sirens' Call in the top 10, the legendary trio here sound-off about the legions of bands they’ve influenced, Madchester, Ian Curtis, 24 Hour Party People, Bez, Gwen Stefani, and why they intend to continue their quest for sonic innovation for some time yet.
A newer name on the domestic scene, this three-tracker is the northside Dubliners’ first attempt to stamp their sound on plastic. It suffers noticeably from poor production, but looking past that, they’re chock-full of ideas and they’re not afraid to use ‘em. Employing electronics liberally but still keeping plenty of organic sounds (‘The A Tune’s guitar in particular sounds good enough to eat), the four-piece come across like a cheery mix between Joy Division, The Futureheads and Boxer Rebellion. Like nothing you’ve ever heard before, basically, which is a good thing. A very good thing.
Following in the footsteps of Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses, Mancunian rockers Doves have continued the tradition of musical excellence for which their hometown is internationally renowned. With their new opus Some Cities in the offing, vocalist Jimi Goodwin here discusses apocalyptic weather, urban decay and those abandoned recording sessions with Madonna’s producer.
They may sport one of the most original sounds in rock’n’roll – but along the way they’ve been influenced by some of the greats.
STUART BAILIE identifies the ten (plus!) key influences on the music of U2
As the punk revolution took hold in the UK, Manchester was notable for the bleak, industrial soundtrack even its most successful bands were making. But that all changed with the explosion there of a new and hedonistic culture, centred in and around The Hacienda, a club run by the city's most influential music biz entrepreneur, the boss of Factory Records, TONY WILSON. The story of the transformation of the city into the centre of rock'n'roll's emerging drug and club culture – of the change from Manchester to Madchester – is told in 24 Hour Party People. With the Happy Mondays as it primary musical focus, there's no shortage of on-screen drugs and fighting – but this is really the extraordinary saga of one of the great rock'n'roll towns, in all its gory glory… Tara Brady reports
Apart from Donnacha Costello and Dave Donohoe, Irish dance producers have failed spectacularly in their efforts to make a lasting dance album. While Swedish producer Jesper Dahlback co-wrote ‘Disarmed’, his partner in crime is Corkonian Mark O’Sullivan, and their debut is one of the freshest electronic albums of 2005. Apart from their ability to deliver timeless acid trax – ‘The Difference’ and ‘Life Is Everywhere’ – there’s the prickly indie pop of ‘Sweetness In Time’, the downbeat, Joy Division-styled doom of ‘Disarm’ and the mixture of epic dancefloor techno, brooding Dave Gahan-esque vocals and Gothic undercurrents on ‘Where’s The Fun’, ‘Heart Like A Demon’ and ‘Three Souls’. By combining music from opposite ends of the spectrum, DK7 have created something disarmingly compelling.
Once director John Carney has picked up yet another gong at the British Film Awards, while Armagh cinematographer Seamus McGarvey was honoured for his work on Atonement.
One of the greatest penslingers in rockdom, he’s championed U2, Joy Division and Kylie and taken a critical scalpel to Oasis, The Strokes and their “miserably narrow mates”. he’s also locked horns with Germaine Greer, helped Frankie to relax and let The Frames slip through his fingers.
They are far, far superior to anyone in the current retro brat pack, with songs that remind you of Sonic Youth without the feedback, the Velvets without the drones, Joy Division without the doom laden fatalism and The Fall with lyrics that you can actually decipher.
Lest you think that The Kills are a one-hit wonder, this sophomore album signals a further move into malevolent, dark territory, and their sound is all the better for it. Dabbling in dense, nihilistic atmospherics as championed by Joy Division, No Wow is gloriously twisted and angular.
From their inception, Electronic were always going to be dogged by high expectations. Let's face it, what act could possibly translate into music the point where three Manchester angles (The Smiths/Joy Division/New Order) trisected?
It’s easy to see A Certain Ratio as a less remarkable sister band to Joy Division/New Order. Sonically, their careers followed a roughly similar path, arriving at a danceable sound, following more post-punk beginnings.
Meds is their fifth album, and the sound of a band straining to slip their own skin. They’ve got a whole new set of musical ordinances going on (the sound is indisputably lush and muscular in a post-industrial kinda way) but still only two tunes: the one that throbs with dum-dum basslines and Sonic guitar swathes, and the slow spacey one with the Joy Division keyboard washes and heavy delay.
Hales has ploughed his own furrow in an admirably single-minded and low-key fashion, deservedly earning himself a loyal following for his Tindersticks/ Joy Division-indebted brand of spectral melancholia.
Hales has ploughed his own furrow in an admirably single-minded and low-key fashion, deservedly earning himself a loyal following for his Tindersticks/ Joy Division-indebted brand of spectral melancholia.
The former NME rock crit, ZTT founder and hyper of Frankie has written a book. But it s not about pop it s about the suicide of his dad. PETER MURPHY reports on how Nothing matters.
While the band have the requisite break neck speed and manic energy the songs are a bit lacking and they ultimately come across (to these ears) like a less talented Placebo.
Two straightforward but gorgeous, glistening electro covers of Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Love Will…’ If you liked Schneider TM’s ‘The Light 3000’ search this 7” down and feel both old and young at the same time.
Disco house and electro are credible dance music flavours, but Les Rythmes Digitales Jacques Le Cont has nonetheless been slated for his love affair with the 80s. In an exclusive interview with Digital Beat, Le Cont defends his musical passions.
Every hip indie musician is namechecking (and soundchecking) Gang Of Four these days. But there’s more to the band than scratchy guitars and funky rhythms – as guitarist Andy Gill tells us, their unique sound was forged during a time of musical innovation and political radicalism.
Acclaimed music writer Simon Reynolds has revisited the post-punk era with a fascinating set of interview transcripts. He talks about prising choice quotes from Phil Oakey, David Byrne and, after a tense stand-off, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas - and explains why the internet has taken some of the fun out of music
The latest four-piece from the Big Apple to spark a record company feeding frenzy, The Stills (like their mates Interpol) owe a sizeable debt to early ‘80s British pop acts.
STEPHEN MORRIS takes time out from humming the theme to Green Acres and terrorising everyone within a five-mile radius of his newly-aquired Yorkshire farm (with his equally newly-acquired heavy artillery) to talk to STUART CLARK about his and Gillian Gilbert's New Order offshoot The Other Two.
JJ72 are being cast as the great new hopes of Irish music. Intense, passionate and melodic, their music has captured an increasing number of fans. With a single in the UK Top Thirty and a debut album about to hit the shelves, they tell NIALL STANAGE how good they are and how good they want to be. Portrait of the Artists As A Young Band: MICK QUINN
Frazer Guided Melodies
TARNATION may make soundtracks to cinematic desert scenes but there s more to Paula Frazer s beautiful songs than a fistful of spaghetti western themes. Interview: Nick Kelly.
Producer, DJ and now a part of acclaimed dance/rock tie-in, Alloy Mental, Belfast-based Phil Kieran talks about his favourite mixing equipment and explains why we should mourn the passing of vinyl.
on the eve of the arrival of a brand new Smiths release hitting the record shops, Hot Press talks to the band's chief architect Johnny Marr about the music that inspired a generation.
Cast as fictional conjoined twins who start their own punk band Harry and Luke Treadaway have delivered one of the year’s funniest and most moving performances in the mocumentary Brothers Of The Head.
Glaswegian indie outfit Sons And Daughters are set to make a big impact with their most pop-influenced album to date. They talk about surviving Bernard Butler bootcamp, touring with Morrissey and, er, covering Adamski.
He’s been the artist to watch for years in Belfast, with a critically acclaimed David Holmes collaboration one of his many achievements. Now Phil Kieran is finally getting around to releasing an album. He talks to Colin Carberry about the long journey from drawing board to completion.
She Wants Revenge, the first record from the Los Angeles duo She Wants Revenge, is in many ways the generic debut: occasionally promising, frequently overreaching, rather too in-thrall to its influences and, ultimately, not wholly satisfying.
The missing link (ouch) between the Velvet Underground and Phil Spector, The Jesus & Mary Chain were one of the most influential and critically lauded bands of the 1980s. 20 years after Psychocandy though, Jim Reid found himself mired in serious alcohol addiction problems. Now domiciled in Devon, he looks back through the lens of newfound – but still precarious – sobriety.
When punk-funk art rockers The Rapture emerged a couple of years ago, they failed to translate tragic hipness into big sales. Road psychosis aggravated the problem, but they weathered in-fighting to ditch the DFA production and strike out on their own.
They used to be a bit of a joke but, with the release of their fantastic new record, The Horrors are suddenly a band to watch. Faris Badwan talks about stepping out with Peaches Geldof, ditching the freak-show hair and recalls his traumatic childhood experiences on Palestine’s West Bank
Recorded in the bucolic splendour of County Westmeath, Bloc Party's second album is a labyrinthine concept album about urban living. Better to take a risk, says frontman Kelé Okereke, than to repeat yourself .
On the eve of Kraftwerk’s headlining appearance at the Electric Picnic, mainman Ralf Hütter talks with rare candour about David Bowie, U2, hip-hop, cycling and why sometimes even man-machines have to smile.
His tearful acoustic ballads have become a phenomenon. In a forthright interview José González discusses his terror of writing lyrics and meeting Craig David and tells of his parents’ flight from oppression.
Ahead of their much anticipated Electric Picnic spot, Bloc Party talk about going mad in Westmeath and explain why it’s time for a post-punk concept record.
Travelling by first class train between Wales and London James Dean Bradfield did a surprising thing: he started working on his first solo album. The resulting record taps the Manic Street Preacher’s growing affection for his roots in the valleys.
The boys are back in town for Galway s Big Beat and SHAUN RYDER is back in the saddle. I m actually now becoming some sort of poet-film-directing-intelligent-motherfucking-artist-luvvy-darling sort of guy and it s wonderful, he tells PETER MURPHY. Pics: Michael Quinn
In which Editors, like Bloc Party before them, abandon urban ennui for the country life, recording that not-very-difficult second album in Grouse Lodge with Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee.
Annual article: The Electric Picnic wasn’t just one of the musical events of the year; it also let us chow down and have a natter with some of the top pop combos of the day, including Bloc Party, Gang Of Four and New Order.
Head Automatica’s 2004 debut Decadence was a dance-rock extravaganza. For the follow-up, former Glassjaw frontman Daryl Polumbo has crafted an altogether poppier affair, full of Fall Out Boy-style harmonies, meaty riffs and powerful choruses.
It’s no rest for the wicket, as Stuart Clark gets bowled over by the DUCKWORTH LEWIS METHOD. Musical odd-couple Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh explain why they decided to record a musical homage to cricket and talk about hanging out with Blur’s Damon Albarn, the Governor of the Bank of England and Sir Tim Rice.
The first time The Killers played Oxegen they fretted whether anyone would turn up to see them. Now they’re sweeping in to headline the main stage. They talk to us about being chased by papparazi, growing up in Middle America and sharing a bill with Bono and, er, Gary Barlow
Arising from the ashes of aborted supergroup Zwan, onetime Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan returns with a hotly anticipated solo debut. Still brimming with that patented goth angst, he tells Paul Nolan about his collaboration with fellow doom-merchant Robert Smith, his friendship with the two Davids – Lynch and Bowie – and, oh yeah, why he's still sore about the Pumpkins.
To mark the occasion of the release of a near definitive punk compilation, GEORGE BYRNE fondly recalls the days when pogo was go-go and gabba gabba was hey.
Morrissey of The Smiths has taken the place of both Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins, single-handedly wiping them out, at least on my one increasingly [used] cassette. When I told him whose conversations we were taping over he said, "Good. I'll talk louder then." Not a man to be taken lightly.
Bum, bottom and crevice may be dirty words but pop certainly isn't as Stuart Clark discovers when he enters the fluffy pink bunny rabbit world of the Lightning Seeds.
Edwyn Collins, late of Orange Juice and whose third solo album was recently released, gets all acidic about the state of the music business. Interview: Patrick Brennan.
Over the past decade, the new wave of films from South Korea has made a stunning impact on movie fans worldwide. The acclaim peaked earlier this year when the remarkable OldBoy scooped the Grand Prix at Cannes. In a Moviehouse special we look at Korea’s visceral treats and talk to ace director Chan Wook Park.
30th Anniversary Retrospective: In a special interview, The Edge reminisces about the early days of Hotpress, explains Bill Graham’s role in U2’s development, and comes clean about what the band have been up to recently in Morocco.
Think about direction, wonder why . . . It’s eleven years since Stano released his debut album Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft. Despite his genuine originality and dedication to his art over the intervening years, he remains one of Ireland’s most enigmatic performers, more appreciated on the continent than in his homeland. Interview: Joe Jackson
JJ 72 have been hailed by some critics as the finest thing to come out of Ireland since U2 - and no wonder. With a hugely impressive debut album under their collective belt, the expectations are even higher for the follow-up, I To Sky. They share with their illustrious predecessors a predilection for intense songs of spiritual yearning - and a desire to make music that truly stands the test of time. But is it rock'n'roll?
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed * along the way
As the founder of Island Records Chris Blackwell can claim a unique role in the evolution of popular music. He pulls up a chair and shoots the breeze about his Jamaican heritage, his relationship with Bob Marley and taking power-lunches with U2.
The album is heavy on melody and harmony – but they’re in danger of being over formulaic and although their choruses tend to be strong, their lyrics lack originality.
In 1991, five years after the death of Phil Lynott, the late Bill Graham wrote in Hot Press of Philo's enduring legacy. Over ten years later his words are as relevant as ever
Is football hooliganism really the new rock ’n’ roll and should little boys be wearing Boot’s No.7 blusher? Stuart Clark fears for the moral wellbeing of the nation’s youth as Manic Street Preachers wage holy war against MTV, Take That, Kate Moss and poor old Gerry Ryan.
Pix: Cathal Dawson.
In Auckland, it was punk rock, gang wars, heroin and prostitution. In Cavan, it s rolling countryside, a recording studio in a church and more dogs than you could throw a stick for. It s been a long way from there to here for BRENDAN PERRY, the former partner in Dead Can Dance who now has a solo album on release.
Interview: NICK KELLY. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
With their biggest dates ever in Ireland looming, LIAM MACKEY dips into voluminous hotpress archives and selects a small sample of what the paper said about U2 over the years
CHRIS DONOVAN looks at the incremental progress of the would-be King of Slane, who tells him about life, love, Christianity, veganism and scoring for films Plus: Profiles of Slane s other attractions, MACY GRAY, MEL C, BRYAN ADAMS, THE SCREAMING ORPHANS and DARA. Also: A Quickie with LORD HENRY MOUNTCHARLES
The star-spangled story of how Richard Melville Hall learned to relax and love sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. "Don't tell anybody but I'm actually the lead guitarist with Slipknot," he informs Stuart Clark.
Our annual HP-7 summit brings together some of the pre-eminent movers and shakers in irish music to reflect on everything from backstage catering to the end of war, pestilence and famine. Your host: Stuart Clark.
At the ripe old age of 50, when most of his peers are floundering in the doldrums, Nick Cave has hit a purple patch with Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album to date.
James Dean Bradfield on The Cult of Richey, The Spanish Civil War, Jon Bon Jovi, and the new album This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. Truth Serum: Peter Murphy. Light Detector Test: Simon Clemenger.
Sci-fi revolutionary and reluctant cyberpunk, William Gibson marks the publication of his new novel pattern recognition by offering Peter Murphy a peek into the present and a brief history of the future.
Andy Darlington travels to Manchester to meet the Stone Roses, an outfit who’ve progressed past the point of being just a band to become something altogether bigger...
And so it is. Humanzi arrived back to Dublin on the back of a triumphant tour with The Bravery, and a level of anticipation befitting their signing to a major label.
They love Ireland and Ireland loves them. As the Arcade Fire ramp up for world domination, the band talk about love, death, war and making music in churches.
As over the top it may sound, the best way of describing Mogwai's music comes in a sample from their first LP Mogwai Young Team; "if the stars had a sound, they would sound like this."
Nirvana - Ten years after. Peter Murphy talks to producer Butch Vig, musician Mark Lanegan and critic Greil Marcus, and gets the inside story of the making of Nevermind, the classic album that changed the face of music, unveiled the anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and brought the world face to face with a screaming soul called Kurt Cobain.
From "Out Of Control" to "All I Want Is You", Neil McCormick presents a major critical retrospective on the complete recorded works of U2, the band who went from being one of the world's worst cover groups to become a leading force in modern Rock'n'Roll
Ghostly, synthetic and smeared, possibly, in charcoal eye-liner, Billy Corgan’s first solo record throws a bleakly affectionate glance towards the ‘80s and the decade’s parade of sombre new-wave groups.
The noisy, spray-on jeans clad clan of Maccabees devotees sing every word and even whistle the “switz-swoo” bit in the middle, much to frontman Orlando Weeks’ amusement.
Kings Of Leon have had number one albums, rave critical notices and boast a remarkable array of A-list fans (U2, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones).
The fact that almost the entire American population of Dublin was up the front shaking their stars and stripes notwithstanding, at The Shelter, Yorn and his band had a pretty blank canvas on which to paint their honest and catchy rock and roll
The Satellite Party are a confused electro-supergroup featuring Perry Farrell, a couple of Chilli Peppers and that awful shouty woman from the Black Eyed Peas. And this is a classic side-project, commendably surging onwards...
The Dears seem set to storm Europe with their second offering, the literary and apocalyptic No Cities Left, a cinematic symphony about the death of one world and the birth of another.
"And the sweetest sounds that you've not found are waiting there beneath the clouds." In cold print that might read like some sad-o, hippy-dippy sentiment but just listen to it radiating from the speakers as 'Plenty Times' kicks off The Frank and Walters' third album.
The Roses have been compiled numerous times before against the band’s wishes, hence the fact that Ian Brown and John Squire buried their grievances and hand-picked these fifteen stone cold classics for the one disc is an event in itself.
With something of a renaissance having taken place in the Dublin independent scene over the past few years, now seems as good a time as any to bring ourselves fully up to speed with the sounds emanating from the Belfast underground.
This second country-influenced collection in a series that started with Viva Americana is something of a double-edged sword - for a fan of the genre it is a treasure trove of demos, live or alternate takes, rare tracks and exclusive recordings of select artists from the Americana stable.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
Bell X1 at the RDS? It would have seemed unthinkable a few years back, but 2005 was a good year for the group – one in which they took steps to ensure that they will be remembered as more than just Damien Rice’s old playmates.
Meds – and how very Placebo is that, an even split between Elizabeth Wurtzel and Kurt Cobain – is their fifth album, and the sound of a band straining to slip their own skin.
Billy Corgan didn’t get to be Billy Corgan without a serious sense of the perverse, and these days it’s there for all to see. It’s in the little things; like his tour stage design of grotesque twisted reptilian metal, Alien-esque; or his insistence on arriving on the Ambassador stage in a trenchcoat, winter scarf and knee-high army boots, while the midsummer heat has everyone else in the venue evaporating.
Liam Mackey's 1979
Released when the infant ’79 was still in the grip of winter, Graham Parker’s ‘Squeezing Out Sparks’ stood the test of time and defeated the heaviest competition.
As it happens, there is a good deal more substance to Kele Okereke and co than the average flash-in-the-pan indie outfit, and throughout 2005 their standing has grown and grown, to the point that they are now able to perform with considerable confidence and poise before a sold-out Olympia audience.
Tonight’s noisily chatty office-party crowd are certainly excited about something, but it may or may not be Life After Modelling. They should be, though: the Lifers’ short set is a compact bang-zap of straight-as-a-die Noughties post-punk, leavened by dreamlike, hand-holdey boy-girl harmonies.
BEFORE EMBARKING upon one of the more, eh, idiosyncratic musical careers of our time, Will Oldham had a brief career as a TV-movie actor. In one of his roles, he was called upon to play the father of a little girl who'd fallen down a well.
BEFORE EMBARKING upon one of the more, eh, idiosyncratic musical careers of our time, Will Oldham had a brief career as a TV-movie actor. In one of his roles, he was called upon to play the father of a little girl who'd fallen down a well.
Sometimes stately, often insistent and never short of majestic, The National’s fourth opus is a towering achievement and this Boxer is surely already a heavyweight contender for album of the year.
Hey, hey, it’s The Pixies. A little thicker around the waistline maybe, but otherwise perfectly preserved, beamed down as if from Planet 1988. And your reporter, like the other few thousand in the front pit, well, he’s having a moment. Their Phoenix Park performance reconfirms The Pixies as rock ’n’ roll’s great dimestore surrealists.
Yes, with explanations like that it couldn't be anyone but Bobby Gillespie talking us through the song titles and tracklisting of the new and as-yet-untitled Primal Scream album
Yes, with explanations like that it couldn't be anyone but Bobby Gillespie talking us through the song titles and tracklisting of the new and as-yet-untitled Primal Scream album
COURTNEY LOVE’S dismissal of Trent Reznor as a farmboy who’d never really seen The Horror was glib but off-the-mark: any Deliverance fan will tell you there’s as much atrocity to be found in redneck terrortory as the urban sprawl, and Columbine scenarios are an epidemic endemic to the sticks, not the inner city.
Extreme heat can provoke strange reactions. People lose the ability to fret over pointless dilemmas. Such as: do I watch New Order or the Super Furry Animals? Or, when are Audioslave on and is there time to visit the loo first?
Atomic Bomb is positively Spector-esque in its ambition, although curiously enough, it’s not a showy record, the playing being mostly subservient to the songs.
They’ve embraced the big sound of America but The Killers still aren’t fully comfortable with the burdens of stardom, reveals frontman Brandon Flowers.
The Hot Press Newsdesk are mightily impressed with the debut single by New Amusement, ‘Gone To Sea’, which is out this week on Dublin indpendent Another City.
If it’s a “stomping indie single with echoes of Joy Division and The Smiths” you’re after, look no further than the last opus from Dublin contenders A Lazarus Soul, ‘Icon’.
This fortnight's Hot Press is our Electric Picnic special to celebrate we've teamed with O2 to put together a collection of the best Irish talent to grace the festival in a 16 track free CD. There’s something here for everyone; in fact, it’s the perfect picnic spread! Not only that, but we've got some of the bands in question to preview the festival for you (and us!!)
Q: Which top Irish quiz-masters’ pathological obsessions include Something Happens, Shamrock Rovers and the amount of shopping days left to the next Suede gig? A: George “You Started, So I’ll Finish” Byrne
Though often overlooked, some of U2’s most exciting and challenging music through the years is to be found hidden away on the flip side of their singles. From U23 to Melon bill graham rides the wild horses of the U2 back catalogue and finds that there’s quite a few thoroughbreds among their many cover versions and experimental remixes.
