Applause Music Reviews: Belfast and Northern Ireland

Gary Clark Jr - This Land One of the lone rangers of guitar music left, Gary Clark Jr has always felt like he’s a man displaced from time. Either one of the last successful remnants of a vintage scene or leagues ahead as regards to his ambiguous style melds. The Austinian musician has had his skills compared to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, although his inclination to fuse blues rock, contemporary hip hop and soul together gives him a much broader sonic horizon. But it is his southern blues, be it a New Orleans acoustic twang or all too familiar Texan grit, that forms the backbone of nearly all his music. Indeed much of his discography is inspired by personal experience. After all, isn’t “write what you know” the saying? It is this intimate knowledge that informs eponymous opening track ‘This Land’, a seething take on racism in America, and all the agony, cheer and cravings that follow it. The candid ferocity of This Land is designed to shock and awe. The normally taciturn Clar

Dead Horse Jive, Ferals + Gnarkats - 16th February 2019 “Lad no joke, we were actually just talking about you.” This is how I am greeted by Sam Foote of Ferals on the top floor of McHugh's bar. As I begin to answer, a call emerges from Tartarus. Soundcheck is beginning. I make my way downstairs with Foote, eager to secure a seat for the beginning of Dead Horse Jive’s only Belfast date for their Hard Rock Soft Border tour. No stranger to soundchecks, it is rare for me to get excited for what is essentially a live practice. And yet, as each band played through a few numbers, I found myself white-knuckled, gripping the edge of my table. 8 pm couldn’t come quick enough. It is 9:16 before Gnarkats take to stage. I sip my Guinness as the Belfast group cut into their set. Fortunately my hand remained on the glass, otherwise, the blast of the kick drum threatened to spill it. Boasting an anthemic presence with sweeping alt-rock vocal harmonies and baton charge breakdowns, the

Seventh Heaven: Don Maple Back in 1977, NASA sent a probe into deep space laden with earthly goods. One such object was a golden record, containing some of the best music created by human beings: J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chuck Berry. All in the hope that, should life exist beyond our spacial borders, anyone that came into contact with the probe would be prepared for homo-sapien culture.  But what if we got to choose which albums went into space?   Seventh Heaven is a feature in which musicians and influencers pick their seven favourite albums and send them out into the heavens in the hope of spreading peace and good vibes throughout the galaxy.  Writing for this edition of Seventh Heaven is Don Maple  #1 The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band When people ask me what my favourite record is, I hate that this is the one that always comes to mind first.  It's a cliched and overused answer, but none-the-less here I am vouching for it's timeless and

SWMRS - Berkeley Is On Fire For a city like Oakland, politics seems to run in the blood. Ever since the 1960’s the bay area has been a hotbed of political activism. The student protest movement began there, it’s a stronghold for LGBTQ+ communities and its musical history has long had ties to social advocacy. With SWMRS however, there is upheaval literally in the blood. Drummer and face of the band Joey Armstrong is the son of Billie Joe Armstrong, and he has all his father's mischief and the arrogance of a millennial. A potent combination that fuels much of the fire of SWMRS latest album Berkley is On Fire. From the very outset, SWMRS are clear in their intention, in that they wish to annoy. The image of Berkeley, the home of protest, in flames is a poignant one that is offset by exaggeration. In the eponymous opener, they are quick to point out the reality of the situation, that the city will survive as it has done before. This hyperbolic combat of melodrama and subsequ

Rosborough - Paper Boats Derry singer Rosborough has been no stranger to success. From his first release, which was lauded by critics , to his recent activities touring with DMA’s, the multi-instrumentalist has been on an absolute tear as of late. Now with the release of his newest EP Paper Boats, he takes his soothing vulnerability to new heights. Try as I might, I found myself unable to escape the smoked, crooning vocals of Rosborough, which have a shocking emotional depth that transcends his guitar. A singer in the same vein as Hozier or Jeff Buckley, the Derry man shows great dexterity on Paper Boats. At one moment, he aches with a matured sadness that borders on cruel, while the next is a chest-thumping blues rock parade. Rosborough embodies the ‘less is more’ philosophy, as the empty spaces in between lines and beats are weaponised to enhance the jagged shadowy horizons of PB. Despite the stripped back, lo-fi aesthetic, however, there is a hard interior, compounded by a fr

Tourist - Everyday  There’s a couple of phrases I’ve always been wary of. “Lads lad” has always remained squarely at the top of that list. “White supremacist” follows closely after. Rounding out the unholy trinity is “artists artist.” What does that even mean? It sounds like something that poncey gentlemen in dinner jackets admire over the rim of a crystal decanter. This is how Willaim Phillips is introduced in an interview with We Run The Nite NYC. The 'artist's artist' Normally it’d be a hard pass, but the latest work from producer Phillips, aka Tourist, defies snobbish perceptions, seeking instead to deconstruct human emotions down their basic forms. Austere in both nature and structure (cover artwork comes from photographer Nigel Shafran), Everyday is as much a mission statement as it is a time frame, a wish to dissect the common and expose what lies beneath. The work of Phillips often follows such a path. The co-writer of Sam Smith breakthrough tune ‘Stay Wi

Romeo Indigo Romeo - Spooky Scary Spooky Scary The long-awaited return to the ‘new releases’ column for Belfast rock quartet Romeo Indigo Romeo is a welcome one. On their last release ‘Whiskey’, smoked singing and a slow-mounting guitar assault entranced listeners with its dark swoon, and Romeo look to continue that dark magic on latest release Spooky Scary Spooky Scary. The opening bar sets the scene, with its slow sweep and bluesy swing painting an open range picture, a posse of banditos under the stars. Vocals croon to life with a rusty grace and syrupy flow, meandering between the gradual electric plucks that dot the landscape. The chorus arrives with a crash as a mini hard rock breakdown lets loose. The lyrics change from smooth to aged and jagged, creating an air of malevolence. This forms the mood of the latter half of the song, which is distinctly harder. The group adopts a growling persona, “I’m better, I’m better than this” they roar, while the ragged, throaty back

BARODA – WALK ON WATER EP’s can come at you from different places. Maybe one gets slipped to you across a sodden bar table. Maybe you get sent one in the post. I became first aware of this particular tape by local four-piece Baroda on the sunny banks of the Danube River in Budapest. I struck up a conversation with two of the band’s members as we toasted our inadequate Irish pigments. I think The Kooks were sound checking in the background. All in a days work etc etc. Fate conspired to delay the release of the EP, but Frontman Neil Goss told me that while they had matured considerably, that the songs still represented something for the band, their beginning. So naturally, its where we should start. The Belfast quartet claim to play “a mix of blues, indie and alternative rock.” Variety then, clearly, is something they pride themselves on. Rightly so. Their debut EP Walk On Water is a rare jack-of-all-trades debut release that sees its owners enhanced, rather than diminished, by the

Ferals - The Low While they base themselves in Belfast, the post-rock trio Ferals cut their teeth on the Atlantic coast, an indicative upbringing when considering their latest release. Following the success of their previous single Brendan Rodgers, the trio have doubled down on advancing their sound. Released through ZOOL Records, the melodic intentions remain but The Low sees them reach for paeanic new heights. A quiet, malicious introduction quickly gives way to a Biffy Clyro-esque air, with high ceiling riffs and punctuating, jackhammer drums. You receive a few moments to recover from the opening blitz before the rock gospel exclamation of “FIND YOUR PURPOSE” booms forth, an anti-absurdist mantra that dominates much of the song’s peaks. Each bellow is accompanied by a piercing crash of cymbals and steely riffage, giving a religious air about the group that sticks to the melody like velcro. You can almost picture the Buckfast-swilling cherubim emerging from the speakers.

Stone Broken, Those Damn Crows + Baleful Creed - 10th February 2019 As I make my way down fountain street, my breath materialises in front of me. As it dissipates into the night, a low rumbling grows. It’s emanating from the top floor of local music hostelry Voodoo, which plays host tonight to a contingent of hard rock fanatic and headbang enthusiasts. The scuzz is palpable as I make my way through the door. First onstage is Belfast’s own Baleful Creed . The heavy rock quartet, known for their weighty riffs and ruthless demeanour, are having some fun tonight onstage. While sticking to the meat and bones of their gruff sound, we are treated to some wavey psychedelic blues in between licks. These deviations don’t last however, and it’s not long before pounding drum fills are shaking my back wall table and gruff, leathery textured vocals are searing the paint of the wall. Ripping up the stage with a prehistoric sound steeped in the blues (a wild harmonica appears for a moment),

Ariana Grande - thank u, next “I understand to a lot of people I'm not a real person.” A recent interview concerning her newest album saw pop superstar Ariana Grande utter these words on the record. When I reached this point of the transcript, I grimaced loudly in my chair. The next line - “But at the end of the day, these are people and relationships. It's real shit to me.” This has always been the case for Grande's persona. The private and public. The dominant and the innocent. The world-conquering pop star and the girl who fell so head over heels, she got engaged after only a few months. For what seems like her entire career, AG has been a passenger in the car as regards to her public perception (“I read the things they write about me. Hear what they're sayin’ on the TV, it's crazy. It’s gettin' hard for them to shock me” - ‘ Fake Smiles ’). Too often have people shaped the narrative for her, be it the cruelly unfair blame she received for the

Seventh Heaven: Ashley ‘Hellview’ Hamilton Back in 1977, NASA sent a probe into deep space laden with earthly goods. One such object was a golden record, containing some of the best music created by human beings: J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chuck Berry. All in the hope that, should life exist beyond our spacial borders, anyone that came into contact with the probe would be prepared for homo-sapien culture.  But what if we got to choose which albums went into space?   Seventh Heaven is a feature in which musicians and influencers pick their seven favourite albums and send them out into the heavens in the hope of spreading peace and good vibes throughout the galaxy.  Writing for this edition of Seventh Heaven is Ashley 'Hellview' Hamilton of ZOOL Records -  #1. The Antlers | Hospice I have been listening to this album for years now, and it still absolutely shatters my heart every time I hear it. It is a concept album about a male nurse who falls in lov