As we look forward to details of the new Divine Comedy album - the 'Who Patiently Awaits The Hour?' countdown on Twitter has been ever so dramatic - we rewind to the October 14, 1998 issue of Hot Press which had a very dapper Neil Hannon on the cover.
Our man Stuart Clark had journeyed to Paris to watch him sleigh La Cigalle as part of the Fin de Siècle tour, after which they'd gone on a bit (or a lot) of a Pernod bender in the city's notorious red light district. Believe us, neither felt big nor clever the following day.
Here's the review Barry Glendenning,
gave the aforementioned 10-tracker:
[link]hotpress.com/archive/520786.html[/link]

Stuart propping up the bar with Neil Hannon was a bit of a thing that year: [link]hotpress.com/music/interviews/THE-KING-OF-COMEDY/431694.html[/link]

Elsewhere in the issue, we also had a few with Ding Denny O'Reilly; took behind the scenes looks at both Saving Private Ryan and U2's 'The Sweetest Thing' video; spent some quality time hanging with Nick Cave at Liss Ard in Cork and reflected (not for the first time) on what a shitehawk Father Michael Cleary was.

Number one in the Irish Singles Chart was Robbie Williams' 'Millennium' while the Manics stole the Album honours with This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.

Review-wise, PJ Harvey's Is This Desire? was very much to the liking of Peter Murphy who also wanted you to sprint to the record store (remember them?) and grab a copy of UNKLE's Thom Yorke featuring 'Rabbit In Your Headlight'.
Chicks, The Marbles and Pelvis were among the fortnight's Irish buzz bands while Rocket From The Crypt in The Mean Fiddler, Dublin was the gig all of Team Hot Press were desperate to blag into. Happy days!