Track of the Day: The Murder Capital - 'Only Good Things'

The Murder Capital have revealed their new song 'Only Good Things', a bright and luminous love song and first taste of the band’s forthcoming new music.

James McGovern (vocalist), guitarist Damien Tuit, guitarist/keyboardist Cathal Roper, bassist Gabriel Paschal Blake and drummer Diarmuid Brennan started performing together in 2015, and set up their own label Human Season Records in 2018.

They releasing their first singles in 2019, sharing their debut studio album When I Have Fears in August that year. Produced by Flood, it was met with widespread critical acclaim. The band performed a sold-out tour across the UK and Europe in promotion of the album, which reached a Top 20 chart position in the UK, a #2 position in their native Ireland.

"Speaking to Hot Press, Murder Capital frontman and lyricist James McGovern said that throughout writing and recording the LP, members of the band were dealing with grief. A sense of loss haunts the album – its songs fluctuating between anger and sorrow. The sparse, but constantly-building-in-intensity ‘Green And Blue’ conjures images of a funeral with lyrics like 'With their wings flung the choir sung their final song today/ As the doors appear to clear the space in which she lay'," Stephen Porzio wrote in his Hot Press review.

The John Congleton-produced 'Only Good Things' is undeniably a step in a new direction for the band, with more vibrancy, hope and optimism at their disposal. Full of warm lyrics and even romance, it's a compelling new effort from the BIMM graduates.

“This track for us has been an exciting evolution for the band," frontman James McGovern explains. "It’s so bright. It’s so colourful. This is a part of the narrative of the overall record that we feel reaches a real place of inner calm, inner peace but at its core, it’s a love song. You get a song like this where, the protagonist in this song is quite simply asking - not pleading - just willing to ask their counterpart to rid them of their intrusive thoughts, the devils on their shoulders and to be truly vulnerable.

"We’re so excited to go to a place like this because perhaps it’s not what is expected of us. It stood out to me during the creation of this record that it is more about the friends that are still here and celebrating those connections, those relationships and being unafraid of life and it’s many seasons. Where ‘Only Good Things’ stands within the record is at a moment where the sonic and the lyrical narrative especially, are of newfound joy.”

The Murder Capital also made their live return this year performing at the likes of Primavera Sound, VYV Festival and Solidays, as well as opening for Pearl Jam earlier this month at British Summer Time. The performances follow their largely sold-out EU / UK tours in 2020, which saw them sell out their biggest headline show to date at London’s Electric Ballroom. The band will play further festivals across the EU / UK this summer.

Revisit our 2019 interview with The Murder Capital here.

Listen to 'Only Good Things' below.

Live dates:
22nd July – Truck Festival – Oxford, UK
31st July – All Together Now – Co Waterford, IRE
17th August – Paredes De Coura Festival – Paredes De Coura, PT
19th August – Lowlands Festival – Biddinghuizen, DE
20th August – Pukkelpop – Hasselt, BE
21st August – Green Man Festival – Breacon Beacons, UK