EP: The New 52 - Green

Info: Dublin rock quartet The New 52 released their latest EP Green last weekend, a collection of five tracks that has mass appeal to fans of no frills, genre-loyal rock music. Opening with the pounding crunch of 'Accidents & Emergencies' it swoops you up and throws you about the place, jumping from rock riffs and intense percussion to a pop-rock chorus recalling The Vines' 'Get Free'. 'We'll Always Have Paris' sees frontman Darragh Cullen deliver a late 90's early 00's pop-rock vocal with an ever so slight hint of Tom Petty bravura. 

On 'Controlling the Night' the four-piece cast the net further backwards with their sound, there's an 80's glam-rock glimmer to the guitar and vocals, I feel like I've seen this on BBC4 at 3am, and it's a very gratifying sound. But behold, there are musical mercenaries in the camp, dropping the funky wah-wah in at 2:45 and a subsequent rock blowout is a well judged stroke, if I saw them live I'd love to hear that jam go on for a good while.

Closer 'Is There Revolution?' has you hanging on for the drums to kick in, The New 52 keep those rock riffs simple yet entirely on point, and at 2:45 they kill it, textbook anthem rock designed to ratchet the music slowly up your spine. Again, hello wah-wah, goodbye mama. It's funny in a way, because by sticking to the rock handbook diligently, The New 52 have made themselves a bit niche in 2018. A lot of people will get it, love it, and a lot of people will be entering new territory. I'm in the former, I'd love to hear future releases with longer solos and everything louder again, I have a taste for it now.

Like / Listen & Follow:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenew52music/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5iGdWTK0gq4ckDz3GDzoCd?si=ELADmfuLRvq6RMzuPue47g

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thenew52music

The VidList #010: Look to the Lady, Five Grand Stereo & Ferals

Look to the Lady - Sixteen

1. Look to the Lady - 'Sixteen'

Produced by well-known Dublin-based filmographer and photographer Olga Kuzmenko, Wicklow band Look to the Lady have released a new video for their single 'Sixteen', which is from the band's 2017 EP Delirium. The video, which is mostly a live recording from the EP launch last November, was shot at a location regular gig-going punters will know well, The Workmen's Club.

2. Five Grand Stereo - 'Anyone Can Be a Star'

Featuring on our independent Irish playlist last month, London-based band Five Grand Stereo who are fronted by Dubliner Chris Singleton, have served up a retro-fitted video for single 'Anyone Can Be a Star' ahead of tour shows promoting new album Sex & Money in The Grand Social, Dublin on the 10th of April, and Dolan's, Limerick the following night. 

3. Ferals - 'Brendan Rodgers'

Another band we featured on last month's playlists was Belfast post-rock quartet Ferals' debut single 'Brendan Rodgers'. I've been a huge fan of the rock scene coming out of the likes of Belfast and Derry over the last few years, bands such as WASPS, The Woodburning Savages, Junk Drawer, Gnarkats and many more, and it's great to see Ferals slotting in alongside these acts whilst standing on their own two feet. 

To check out REMY's previous VidList go here https://thebestofmusicandfilm.blogspot.ie/2018/02/the-vidlist-spudgun-motions-sandy-kim.html

EP: Pine the Pilcrow - Only Ghosts

Photo: Stephen White - (The Last Mixed Tape)

Info: It's just over 2 years since Dublin's Pine the Pilcrow sent the first plume of orchestral beauty out into the air with their debut EP, it settled very well, and the reaction possibly exceeded their expectations. On Friday they shared sophomore EP Only Ghosts, their early tentative forays back in 2016 now become grand strides. 

Opening with the first single from the collection, 'Dahlia' immediately sees Pine the Pilcrow pushing a confident and gripping expression of their music right to the forefront before of our noses. Upon release I had noted; "They once again manage to hold our focus with sparse and pointed moments, such as the repetitious piano progression, and then whisk us up into a whirlpool of keys, strings and harmonies to borderline ecstatic climaxes, and gently, back down again." Those climaxes and their execution are a key to how the band delicately yet definitively toy with the listener's emotions. 

'Your Eyes' brought back memories to me of how Glen Hansard's vocal was held in the centre of tracks like 'What Happens When The Heart Just Stops' or 'Santa Maria' on For the Birds when The Frames were moving from the frenetic pace of Fitzcarraldo and Dance the Devil... It's like a glowing ember in reverse, instead of the amber warmth of the light fading, it goes from a tiny dot to full brightness.

The band's latest single 'Only Ghosts' is devastating, its darkness still managing to be filled with a terrifying beauty, its sadness a necessity in order to feel human again. It is here that Pine the Pilcrow establish themselves, in my opinion, as the most accomplished modern folk act in the country. Their musicianship, delivery of feeling, and quality of song-writing is at the top level. From the first ghostly warble from singer Hannah Ryan, to the sheer delicateness of the piano and cello, where it feels like the bow is hesitant and almost afraid to bother the strings, you are sucked down the whirlpool willingly. Every band with a longevity has that moment, a first piece of magic that seems to have come from beyond their collective creativity and turned into something sentient and independent in itself, 'Only Ghosts' is Pine the Pilcrow's moment.

After the sweeping and gorgeously cinematic instrumental of 'Mirrors and Lights', we conclude with 'Red Empire'. The first half of the track is bare, piano, vocals and soft mystical brush strokes in the distance. This build is unsurprisingly very effective, as those brush strokes become bolder and broader all of the elements converge, like the dawn lapping of the tide coming in before it crashes on the shore. 

In an era where we have become desensitised and little shocks us anymore, and where our heads are so clogged with the onslaught of information, both relevant and pointless, collections of music like Pine the Pilcrow's Only Ghosts are a gift, the antidote to apathy, the resuscitation of an almost dead heart through unbridled beauty. It sounds dramatic because it is.

Pine the Pilcrow are currently on tour, catch them live at the below venues:

MAY 10 - IONTAS THEATRE, CASTLEBLAYNEY, MONAGHAN

MAY 18 - THE FOLK N SOUP CLUB, TIPPERARY

JULY 11 - GHOSTLIGHT SESSIONS, EARAGAIL ARTS FESTIVAL, BALLYBOFEY

Like / Listen & Follow: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PineThePilcrow

Bandcamp: https://pinethepilcrow.bandcamp.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2x6ct8wyHZUb1v5PmGGf74?si=Ci7PJgBYT32paatirInyhg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pinethepilcrow