Latest news with #postpunk
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Murder Capital at Iveagh Gardens in Dublin: Stage times, ticket information, support acts and more
Irish post-punk group The Murder Capital are set to perform at Dublin's Iveagh Gardens this week. The band have been busy gigging since the release last year of their third studio album, Blindness, to critical acclaim. Produced by John Congleton, The Murder Capital wrote the energetic and experimental album over 10 days in Dublin and recorded it in a swift three-week blast in Los Angeles. If you are heading to the gig in the Iveagh Gardens, here's everything you need to know. When and where is it? The Murder Capital will play Dublin's Iveagh Gardens on Saturday, July 19th. READ MORE What time should I arrive? Doors for the gig open at 6.30pm, with the music expected to begin at 8pm. Iveagh Gardens concerts tend to be finished up by 10.30pm. Traffic and entry delays are inevitable, so make sure you give yourself a couple of hours' leeway getting to and from the venue. Who is playing? The band's support acts are English punk-rock duo Soft Play, formerly known as Slaves, and London-based indie-rock band Mary in the Junkyard. What songs will The Murder Capital play? This is a set list performed by The Murder Capital at Blind in Turkey last month. It might give an idea of what to expect at the Dublin concert. The Fall More Is Less Death of a Giant The Stars Will Leave Their Stage A Thousand Lives Heart in the Hole A Distant Life That Feeling Swallow Love of Country Green & Blue Feeling Fades Moonshot Can't Pretend to Know Don't Cling to Life Ethel Words Lost Meaning How do I get to and from the gig? The venue is located right beside St Stephen's Green in the heart of Dublin city, so concertgoers are advised to use one of many public transport options to get to the venue. Travel by bus: A wide variety of Dublin Bus routes service the city centre. The 37 route, for example, runs along the northside of the quays and will drop you an eight-minute walk from the Iveagh Gardens. You can plan your journey with Transport for Ireland here . Travel by Luas: The St Stephen's Green Luas stop is a seven-minute walk from the venue. If you are heading southbound, take any green line Luas towards Sandyford or Brides Glen. If you are heading northbound, take any green line Luas towards Broombridge or Parnell. Travel by train: If you are arriving in Dublin by train, you can hop on the red line Luas from Heuston Station to Abbey Street. There, transfer to the green line Luas from the stop on Marlborough Street, hopping off at St Stephen's Green and walking seven minutes to the Iveagh Gardens. Travel by car: The closest car park to the venue is the Q-Park at St Stephen's Green. You can pre-book a parking space here , though it is recommended you use public transport as traffic delays before and after the gig are inevitable. Are there any tickets left? At the time of writing there are still tickets for the available. They can be purchased from Ticketmaster here . Remember to download your tickets to your phone in advance, as there may be internet or connectivity issues at the venue on the day. Do not rely on screenshots, as Ticketmaster often use live or dynamic barcodes that update regularly. What is security like? The event is for over-14s only, and under-16s must be accompanied by an adult aged 18 or over. Make sure to bring an official form of identification with you such as a passport, Garda age card or driving licence. Bags size A4 or more will not be permitted entry, and all bags will be subject to a search on arrival. Prohibited items include glass, cans, alcohol, garden furniture, umbrellas, flares, illegal substances or any item that could be used as a weapon. Recording and taking pictures using a camera phone is no problem, but professional recording equipment will not be allowed inside the venue. What does the weather look like? According to Met Éireann, Saturday will be mostly cloudy with highest temperatures of 15-18 degrees.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
New Irish albums reviewed: Sons of Southern Ulster, Poor Creature, Darragh Morgan, The Swell Season and California Irish
Sons of Southern Ulster: Through the Bridewell Gate (SOSU) ★★★★☆ Through the Bridewell Gate by Sons of Southern Ulster The malcontents of Co Cavan resurface with the aim of once again visualising young dreams in middle age. Three albums in (and 10 years from their formation), Sons of Southern Ulster can safely lay claim to be as authentically Irish post-punk as any of the current native crop touting a similar validity. Sprechgesang songs such as Billyhill Hall, Royal Breffni, and the especially lyrical To the New World and Back ('I heard the voice of Joe Dolan – 'make me an island,' he cried'), place mainstays David Meagher and Justin Kelly in a league and a psycho-geographic place of their own. Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight (River Lea Records) ★★★★★ All Smiles Tonight by Poor Creature Cormac MacDiarmada , John Dermody, and Ruth Clinton may have their limbs in other contemporary experimental folk bands ( Lankum , Landless), but their eyes remain firmly focused on recalibrating songs from many years past and adding unexpected sonic twists and turns without making you reach for the smelling salts. Psyche-folk might be the applicable category or genre, but there's something else filtering through on multilayered tracks such as Willie O, Bury Me Not, Adieu Lovely Eireann and Hick's Farewell. Think more kosmische variations of Cocteau Twins, Enya and several spectral others, imbued with sean-nós, drone, and artists such as Sandy Paton, Jean Ritchie, and Karen Dalton. Producer John 'Spud' Murphy sets the controls for the dark heart of the sun, while Clinton (whose father, incidentally, was once a member of Ireland's finest R&B band, The Rhythm Kings) delivers vocal shivers and delights in equal measure. Definite Album of the Year vibrations from this one. Darragh Morgan: For Violin and Electronics Vol II (Diatribe Records) ★★☆☆☆ Cover of For Violin and Electronics Vol II by Darragh Morgan New music violinist Darragh Morgan has quite the professional career, performing not only with numerous contemporary music groups (including Ensemble Modern, Icebreaker and London Sinfonietta) but also with The Divine Comedy, the Spice Girls and Sigur Ros. The sequel to his 2017 album showcases examples of what could be, for some, taxing. There are shades of that throughout the 10 minutes of Zack Browning's Sole Injection (think repetitive hiccups with occasional stabs of police car alarms). Conversely, in Scanner's A Cantegral Segment, Morgan's playing is peak elegance, but the album's longueurs far outweigh the best moments. The Swell Season: Forward (Masterkey Sounds) ★★★★☆ Forward by The Swell Season Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova reunite as The Swell Season for their first album in 16 years, and to say the results are equal parts bittersweet, heartwarming and wise is a piercing understatement. The pair's personal history is (presumably) well enough known to view Forward as a story-driven sequence of confessional regret and acceptance. Whatever the truth, there's no denying the empathy and common threads that connect not just the songwriters but also their folksy songs. Listen to People We Used to Be, Stuck in Reverse, I Leave Everything to You and A Little Sugar without your eyes brimming, and you have a heart of stone. READ MORE California Irish: The Mountains Are My Friends (7Hz Productions) ★★★☆☆ The Mountains Are My Friends by California Irish From bullish hard rock to harmonic folk is a turn we didn't expect Belfast's Cormac Neeson to take, but the former frontman of The Answer has taken to the sensibilities of Laurel Canyon like the proverbial duck to water. Gathering a bunch of musicians with similar influences, the mood enveloping the debut album by California Irish is, says Neeson, 'the opposite of boring AI-generated, no-soul perfection'. There is throughout, then, not only genuine creative instinct but also the kind of sonic warmth that comes only from musicians in a room taking cues and empathetic hints from each other.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Oi! la la: meet the new wave of French punks making noise
Wearing washed 501 jeans, buzzcuts, boots and braces, punks and skinheads are packed into a small and sweaty venue. They're pogoing to power chords and shouting along to the terrace-style chants coming from the stage. But this isn't London's 100 Club in 1978, it's a gig by French band Syndrome 81 in the suburbs of Paris in 2025. They sound like a surprising but appealing mash-up of Cockney Rejects and the Cult. And they are part of a new wave of French Oi! punk bands who are blending scrappy, working-class angst with a firm nod to the country's synth-soaked coldwave past. In the UK in the 1970s, Oi! erupted as a wave of rowdy street punk with solidly working-class roots, attracting a new set of skinhead fans with its simple but upbeat sounds, pairing power-chord riffing with anthemic vocals. Yet from Bordeaux to Brest, from Lyon and Lille to Paris, countless new additions to France's punk scene are breathing post-punk and new wave influences into the genre. There are Rancoeur, with sparse post-punk, punchy basslines upfront in the mix, and there are Oi Boys, and Rixe, with their drum-machine-driven rhythms. Bands such as Chiaroscuro fuse typical Oi! snarls with darker melodies, while Utopie opt for frosty lo-fi riffing and uptempo synth-punks No Filter throw quasi-industrial keyboard twinkling into the mix. These bands gleefully experiment with Oi!'s common motifs, layering back-and-forth gang vocals over catchy synth hooks – variously construed as a whole new genre: French Oi, or sometimes Cold Oi, though the bands themselves often balk at such labels. And unlike the British scene that influenced them, these French bands are uniformly antifascist. Some, like Rancoeur, have vocally distanced themselves from the genre's historic far-right associations, after realising that some of their followers on social media were racist. These post-punk currents kicked off across France in earnest about a decade ago, with groups including Zone Infinie, Traitre, Douche Froide, Litovsk and Hinin. Since then, this new wave of French Oi! bands have gained a zeitgeisty following in the international punk underground. Although the approaches of these bands differ, they tend to share some common notes: heavy on the atmosphere and with a broadly minimalist output, played with melancholic feeling and a lower tempo. The slowed-down sound of Syndrome 81, whose 2022 LP Prisons Imaginaires was met with acclaim, was 'an accident, to be honest', admits vocalist Fabrice Le Roux. The usual drummer for the group was unable to attend rehearsals, forcing the band to write slower songs that they could actually play. Other bands have leaned heavily into electronic influences. Matthieu Pellerin of Oi Boys picked a Yamaha rhythm box to bring a 'cold and martial aesthetic' into their music. Rancoeur, meanwhile, started life as classic Oi! in the vein of Welsh band the Oppressed. But during Covid, says bassist and singer Julien Viala, the whole group started listening to post-punk and coldwave. When they could finally rehearse after lockdowns lifted, they all 'arrived with new effects on our guitars', and that's when they named their sound 'Cold Oi', possibly coining the phrase. Crucially, these bands sing en français – something Syndrome 81's Le Roux was sceptical about at first. 'I thought singing in French could be sketchy,' he says. 'Some bands are very good but when you listen to the lyrics, it sounds dumb and shitty. I never thought it would speak to people abroad.' But speak to people abroad it has. Multiple comments on widely streamed YouTube playlists and in online punk communities proclaim the superiority of French-sung Oi!, while even monolingual gig-goers attending tours in the US do their best to sing along in the language. While this gloom-tinged Oi! is having a moment in France, its influences run deeper. In the UK, after a fissure in classic Derbyshire Oi! band Blitz, the remaining members steered so abruptly into post-punk and new wave that they shed many of their fans in the process. But 'Blitz opened the doors to new influences between Oi! and post-punk', says Julien Viala of Rancoeur. 'Every band tries to do something new. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We're lucky to have a strong French punk history and I think a lot of new bands are inspired by old bands.' In France, 1980s Oi! bands such as Brest's Komintern Sect and Camera Silens – whose bassist and singer Gilles Bertin notoriously robbed a cash-handling company in Toulouse before going on the lam – are infused with a darker, heavily reverberated edge. Further back still, France has not only flirted with the punk avant garde but helped to define it, says Andrew Hussey, a historian of French culture and punk. 'There was a lot of crossover between art, literature and rock music,' says Hussey, helping to drive more experimental sounds. Although influenced by UK bands such as the Clash, the pioneering French punks Métal Urbain plumped for a machine over a human drummer in the mid-1970s. These proto-industrial leanings influenced other French bands such as Bérurier Noir, who, at their most idiosyncratic and weird, create an uncanny kind of punk with mechanical beats. Le coldwave, meanwhile, with its icy guitars and synth melodies, was born in the late 1970s – a mixture of post-punk and new wave pop exemplified by bands such as Asylum Party and Marquis de Sade. All together, says Hussey, these new French Oi! bands take the real working-class energy of historic French punk and 'graft it on to this European sensibility' with additional coldwave flair. Pellerin – who has retired Oi Boys but will soon release a new synth-driven Oi! band called Nuits Blanches, with members from Rixe and Headbussa – credits the shared commonalities of France and the UK with birthing these sounds. 'Blitz were making Oi-wave in the early 80s,' he says. 'France and England, with their pasts of struggle, of landscapes deformed by industrialisation, unemployment rates and endless autumns, have musical periods marked by anger.' That can be found in the UK post-punk of the late 1970s, he says, just as it can in the French emo scene of the early 00s or in this new crop of French Oi! bands. 'With disillusioned voices over minor chords, there's less of a tautological relationship, and a kind of subtlety to the music,' Pellerin says. 'And it makes me happy that internationally, people are interested in France for all this too.'
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Wet Leg's Rhian Teasdale: ‘I'm doing sexy body rolls, but I'm wearing lobster claws'
Rhian Teasdale has always sung like a rock star, and now she looks like one too, her hair dyed a shocking strawberry pink, and jewels on her nails and teeth. 'This is something we've always played with,' says Wet Leg 's Grammy-winning frontwoman, citing the band's 2022 single Wet Dream, the promotional film for which features Teasdale and Hester Chambers , her bandmate, looking like glamorous lobsters. 'It's a very tongue-in-cheek sexual-innuendo song. In the video I'm doing, like, these sexy body rolls, but I'm wearing lobster claws.' Wet Dream was part of a blitz of releases that, over the space of a few months, propelled Wet Leg from alternative-playlist fodder to award-bagging stars – Rolling Stone called their eponymous debut album 'the relentlessly catchy post-punk record' the world had been waiting for. Three years later they're back with a scintillating second LP, Moisturizer, looking very different but still making the same thrilling deadpan post-punk. READ MORE What's changed is that Teasdale is flexing her rock-star muscles, both figuratively and literally. She has the gym-honed physique of someone who could hold her own in an MMA ring – but the real muscle has gone into the way the band present themselves. First time around, she and Chambers were overwhelmed twentysomethings from the Isle of Wight, in southern England, still working day jobs and not sure how to negotiate the overnight fame that came their way when their single Chaise Longue went viral – leading Harry Styles to invite the pair to tour as his opening act, Dave Grohl to make a cameo appearance with them at Coachella and Barack Obama to put one of their songs on his summer playlist. Now they feel fully in control. Moisturizer is the work of artists calling the shots and confident in the way they present themselves – musically, sartorially and philosophically. [ Wet Leg: Triumphant debut of frosty insouciance Opens in new window ] 'When we made the first album we took time off work,' says Teasdale, who is 32. In those early days she was still earning a living as a film stylist's assistant. (Her credits include an Ed Sheeran video.) 'I was working on set, on commercials, and as a wardrobe assistant. I wanted to blend right into the background. It's such a male-dominated space in the film industry. My life, outside of school, up until that point when we started Wet Leg, is just ... you have no time for self-expression. You have no money.' Moisturizer is one of those great second LPs that land like bigger, brighter, more confident versions of the music that made the artists so beloved the first time around. The point is underscored by the romping Pixies-meets-Motörhead single CPR and the student-disco blitzkrieg Catch These Fists, which features pummelling riffs and lyrics to match ('I don't want your love/ I just want to fight'). The latter is about dealing with unwanted male attention, its key line being 'Don't approach me, I just want to dance with my friends'. But Moisturizer is also threaded through with the same subversive humour that prompted Teasdale to dress like a 'sexy lobster' in the Wet Dream video while delivering lines such as, 'you climb on to the bonnet and you're licking the windscreen/ I've never seen anything so obscene.' That vibe is epitomised by the cover of Moisturizer, an unsettling photograph of Teasdale with a hideous AI-generated smile as Chambers, her back to the camera, flexes monster claws. The image is disconcerting in the conflicting emotions it evokes. Teasdale radiates rock-star mystique while looking like something that has crawled from your worst nightmare. She enjoys the duality, the 'sugary sweetness of the cover, having it juxtaposed with this creepy AI smile and the long fingernails' – and you have to regard the artwork in the context of things she's said about being objectified as a woman in the spotlight, including the creepy middle-aged men who spend entire Wet Leg gigs filming on their phones. Moisturizer: the cover photograph of Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale The photograph's 'kind of sexy, disgusting' combination fits in with Wet Leg's long enjoyment of unsettling their audience. In the Chaise Longue video, Teasdale and Chambers dress like characters from a folk horror movie; Chambers's features are concealed behind a giant wicker hat, so there's a real chill when she delivers the song's whispered refrain of 'What?' Similarly, performing at the Brit Awards in 2023, they were accompanied by Morris dancers from the Isle of Wight. 'One of the fun things about being in a band is your opportunity to create a world around the music,' Teasdale says. 'When you watch a film and you like the soundtrack it gives you so much. 'I just watched 28 Years Later' – Danny Boyle's zombie-themed folk horror . 'The soundtrack to that film, it's everything for me. The opportunity to serve up your music with imagery is such an important part of it. It can completely change the way that you hear something.' Wet Leg: Rhian Teasdale. Photograph: Meghan Marin/New York Times They recorded the new album with Dan Carey, the Fontaines DC producer. As with the Dublin group, Wet Leg weren't overawed by the challenge of following up an acclaimed debut. Teasdale's philosophy is that it's better to crack on than obsess about making a perfect second LP. 'Sometimes your best ideas are the first ideas,' she says. In the studio, accordingly, they made an effort not to second-guess themselves. 'You can censor yourself out of something that's a bit weird and that's the magic secret sauce. There can be a lot of pressure if you overthink it. We were, like, 'Let's rip the Band-Aid off.' We managed to keep it fun. But in a way of, 'Let's keep the pace up.'' Teasdale and Chambers, who met studying music, had been in and out of bands through their early 20s. They decided to start Wet Leg for a lark while sitting on a Ferris wheel – and were soon conquering indiedom one chunky riff at a time. They initially presented themselves as a duo, with their backing band comprising a trio of shaggy indie boys for hire (Joshua Mobaraki on guitar, Ellis Durand on bass and Henry Holmes on drums). Second time around, those background musicians are now fully signed-up band members. Chambers has made a conscious decision to retreat into the background, the better to navigate her social anxiety. 'Starting the band together ... that will always be a very important part of our story,' Teasdale says. 'When we signed with Domino we signed as the two of us, and we went on tour, and we took our friends with us. Experiencing all the things that we have together, we have naturally developed into a five-piece. 'We've learned things along the way of what we do and don't like doing and what comes with being in a band – which, of course, we had no real understanding of.' Chambers's decision to step back was a result of their experiences as musicians in the spotlight, according to Teasdale. 'We had no idea this thing was going to snowball in the way that it did. We started the band because we wanted to play some shows together and write music together. 'You don't think about all the other things that go along with it, like an online presence and people being able to comment and pick you apart, and all of the promo that goes along with it – having to speak about your music and dissect why you've done this or why you've done that.' Wet Leg: Henry Holmes, Joshua Mobaraki, Rhian Teasdale, Ellis Durand and Hester Chambers. Photograph: Alice Backham For all the ferocity of the music, a seam of sweetness runs through tracks such as Davina McCall, with its chorus of 'Days end too soon/ When I'm with you'. That's a reflection of where Teasdale is in her personal life and her relationship with her nonbinary significant other. 'I'm someone who wears their heart on their sleeve quite a lot, for better or for worse,' she says. 'I am very, very in love. I'm obsessed with my partner.' Teasdale is chatty and pleasant, but a slight chill descends when she's asked if she has any regrets about writing Ur Mum, a scorched-earth number from their first album that carpet-bombed a former romantic partner with its unsparing lyrics – 'When I think about what you've become/ I feel sorry for your mum.' The song is believed to be about Teasdale's ex-boyfriend – and former Wet Leg member – Doug Richards, who has said that the tune hurt his feelings, largely because his mother had died shortly before he and Teasdale began their relationship. 'I realise she wrote these lyrics during the heat of a break-up, but she could have come and told me about it after, given me a heads-up at least,' he told the Sunday Times. Teasdale did later voice misgivings. 'It's a bit harsh,' she told the Independent. ''I feel sorry for your mum' is a very mean thing to say.' Today, however, she says, 'I don't have any regrets. Why would I have regrets?' [ Wet Leg at Electric Picnic 2023: Smart, punchy, shin-kicking pop from Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers Opens in new window ] She may not have misgivings over Ur Mum, but Wet Leg have learned a great deal in the run-up to the new LP. One of the lessons is that, if the whole world wants a bit of you, there comes a time when you have to put your foot down. Say yes to everything – every gig offer, every interview request – and soon you'll be running on empty. That's exactly what happened to Wet Leg in September 2022, when exhaustion led to them cancelling several shows in the United States. Second time out, they're determined to climb Everest at their own pace. 'If I didn't say no, I would be doing promo all day. People are trying to do their jobs, and trying to do a good job, and everyone's working hard for us.' She skips a beat, as if reflecting on the busy year stretching ahead of Wet Leg. 'It's up to me to communicate what I'm emotionally and mentally available for. No one can guess. That's on me.' Moisturizer is released by Domino . Wet Leg play the All Together Now festival, in Co Waterford, July 31st-August 3rd
Al Arabiya
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Arabiya
Music Review: English Post-Punks Wet Leg Level Up on Sophomore Album, 'Moisturizer'
A few songs into the second studio album from buzzy English post-punk Wet Leg, singer Rhian Teasdale yells 'level up!' And level up they have. The alt-rock duo-turned-group took their time to complete their sophomore release titled Moisturizer. It was worth the wait. The album is a terrific soundtrack for a long hot summer. The Grammy Award-winning Wet Leg emerged from England's Isle of Wight in 2021 with the quirky viral hit 'Chaise Lounge,' which released before they had ever performed live. The song immediately charmed audiences – a cheeky track centered on Teasdale's deadpan delivery and guitarist Heather Chambers' chunky, jagged bursts. They grew from there, releasing a self-titled debut album in 2022 that rose to the top of the UK charts. On Moisturizer, the two have greatly expanded their skills and range. But they've also retained the raunchy, goofy energy that gained them an adoring audience. The new version of Wet Leg is no longer just a duet. Their touring band – bassist Ellis Durand, drummer Henry Holmes, and guitarist/synth-player Joshua Mobaraki – have formally joined the project and share writing credit on several songs. The expanded band complements Chambers' oddball progressions and facilitates a bigger, more layered sound. The opening track 'CPR' opens with Holmes' drums and Durand's funky bassline before the guitars come in. The band can now groove as well as grind. The lyrics capture the silliness and dead seriousness of a bruising crush. Playing the dispatcher, Chambers asks 'Hello? 999. What's your emergency?' Teasdale answers 'Well… the thing is… / I… I… I… I… I… / I'M IN LOVE.' Across the album there are plenty of tracks that work to rattle car speakers and dominate summer festival mainstages. On the belligerent single 'Catch These Fists,' Teasdale declares 'I don't want your love / I just wanna fight.' On 'Pillow Talk,' Teasdale coos over an industrial metal drone and delivers some of the horniest lyrics in the band's notably graphic catalog. The slower songs show off the band's new tools. 'Davina McCall,' named after the English television presenter, begins bendy with some oddball chord changes and surprisingly delicate vocals. The slow jam '11:21' could sit next to the soft singer-songwriter Weyes Blood on a playlist. 'Don't Speak,' written and sung by Chambers, channels the bluesy energy and corny-sweet lyrics of late Replacements. In total, Wet Leg – now a full band – has a fuller sound. Fans will be wise to join them on the journey.
