Hello and introduction

Hello and welcome to everyone reading this! This is my online archive for all my music reviews for Belfast and Northern Ireland. I will be updating this as I write them.

If you wish to have a piece reviewed, please email me at benjaminjlmagee@gmail.com

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Sarah McCreedy - Older

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Sarah McCreedy - Older  Flush as the North is with musical talent, singer/songwriters have long been a staple of the scene and remain one of our biggest cultural exports. Enter Co. Down hopeful Sarah McCreedy, who fits the mould of the modern singer/songwriter by combining accomplished musical aptitude with an impressive composition in her debut single Older. Carpeted by nostalgia, Older implies a level of comprehension by McCreedy that almost makes it unfair to consider the single a debut. Fully formed and confident, there is little room for complaint, nor is there evidence of unused potential. The opening of Older featured a measured and muted rhythmic strumming that is almost soporific in nature before McCreedy comes in, her vocals beginning barely louder than a whisper before gathering both traction and weight. As mentioned before, the song relies heavily on nostalgia and the march of time, but it is not without its wit. McCreedy informs the listener during the cho...
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Gareth Dunlop - Many Moons Ago

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Gareth Dunlop - Many Moons Ago  Belfast journeyman Gareth Dunlop’s new EP Many Moons Ago comes from a place of nostalgia and love. Inspired by his travels between his hometown and Nashville, Many Moons… is as much about heartbreak as it is about love. Poetic and dark, Dunlop is not reinventing the wheel on his new EP, sticking to his strengths and writing a fantastic set of mist-shrouded ballads. Opener Devil Like You begins with a slow gothic riff that would be at home on a Nick Cave record. Dunlop's low, gravely vocals whisper out amidst the music, like fog over a lake. Dunlop ’s steady strumming acts as a hair-raising high point to the lyrical lows, while the plucked strings emit a low muted air of wickedness. Dunlop's signature brand of mesmerising scores and lulling vocals create a unique almost vaudevillian genre of folk that left me genuinely fearful. The whole EP is not given over eerie sensibility, however, as standouts Cant Stand Myself and Blind ...
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Hozier - Nina Cried Power

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Hozier - Nina Cried Power  Back after a four-year hiatus, Andrew Hozier-Byrne aka Hozier released his newest EP Nina Cried Power on September 6th 2018. Unfair as it is for one the of the worlds foremost cult heroes to release a teaser, it is rare that one finds an EP so utterly packed to the brim with content. Known for his vulnerable honesty, subtle bite and poetic lyrics, Nina Cried Power picks up from the success of 2014’s mega success Hozier and build on it. No longer restricted to the jagged reaches of the human soul, Hozier reaches colossal new heights while maintaining that all too homo sapien penchant for pain and love that made his eerie charm so accessible.   In typical fashion, the Irish singer-songwriter is impossible to pin into one genre or other, with frequent switches between triumphant defiance (Nine Cried Power), moody malevolence (NFWMB) and body swaying blues (Moments Silence). Less a composer now and more of an architect, Hozier’s evolution fro...
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