Paddy Goes Belfest

Throughout the 90s, the Northern rock scene effortlessly lorded it over its complacent equivalent down south. Whether it was the pop-metal adrenaline rush of Therapy?, the anthemic teen-punk of Ash, or the ingenious Scott-Walker-from-Fermanagh lyrical aphorisms of Neil Hannon, our friends in the north seemed to imbue their music with more wit, flair and imagination than a million of Dublin’s dad-rawk, sub-U2 clones combined.

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. First up are angular punk noiseniks What’s The Fusz, who tear through their impressive set of skewed rhythms and wiry guitars with passion, economy and the minimum of, er, fuss.

The appearance of post-rock instrumentalists Tracer AMC though, is where things start to get very interesting indeed. The Tracer manifesto would appear to be that if you’re going to take a single band as your primary reference point, you might as well take one of the best on the planet – namely Mogwai.

Although AMC don’t quite scale the mind-blowing heights reached during the live performances of Stuart Braithwaite and co., they nonetheless generate a heavenly racket, veering between exquisite, ethereal ambience and skull-shatteringly intense bouts of white noise. The man from 4am stoner-rock heaven, he say, “Yes!”

Slightly more conventional are Pavement-meets-Weezer quirk rock practitioners Corrigan, who have a difficult job following such an impressive set. But they acquit themselves superbly, delivering an excellent collection of off-kilter pop curios. Throw in sterling performances from Ninebar International and Joy Division-meets-Blondie indie faves Desert Hearts and you come away feeling that the future of Northern Irish rock is in very capable hands