Sounds of System Breakdown

Sounds of System Breakdown may prove to be one of the year’s surprise packets. Striding confidently into the same sonic territory as the likes of James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem, and influenced variously by Talking Heads, Blur, Daft Punk, Hot Chip and Soulwax, the Dublin outfit’s eponymous debut album is nothing less than a meticulously-assembled master-class in electro post punk. On this evidence, originator and mainman Rob Costello may well have cracked it.

Right from the outset SOSB make a supremely impressive noise, all dramatic synth riffs, ballsy guitars and impressive shuffling funky rhythms. Rather than cancelling each other out, the organic and the electronic co-exist here with an ease that amounts to virtuosity. The monumental ‘Vinegar Joe’ is superb, almost six minutes of powerful electro rock that wouldn’t sound out of place on the main stage at Oxegen. Nor are they afraid to be ambitious. There are chanted vocals, trancey instrumental interludes and layers of synth colourings aplenty. But at the heart of it all is a highly evolved feel for the big beat, allied to melodies that insinuate themselves into the cerebral cortex and arrangements that add up to much more than the sum of their parts. ‘Check Out The Balance’ is superb, and on the brilliantly constructed ‘Devil’s Son’ the three-piece sound like the rightful heirs-apparent to New Order.

Few Irish bands have emerged with a sound as fully formed as this and with as obvious a command of the structures of contemporary rock. What’s more, they are operating in a zone where the hits are happening. Impressive stuff.