Following the release of No Flowers Grow In Cement Gardens last Friday, A Lazarus Soul have scored an exceptionally strong week on the charts – debuting at No.9 on the Official Irish Albums Chart, and soaring straight to No.1 on the Independent Albums Chart.

No Flowers Grow In Cement Gardens was named Hot Press's Album Of The Month for July, with Will Russell noting that the songs continue singer/songwriter Brian Brannigan's "rich vein of form."

"The Marina Carr-inspired lead single, ‘The Flower I Flung Into Her Grave’, encapsulates the core of the album – a reflection on the spirit of humanity, our trials and travails, and the necessity to survive them," Will writes in his nine-star review.

No Flowers Grow In Cement Gardens follows the Irish band's beloved 2019 album, The D They Put Between The R & L, which earned spots on numerous end-of-year lists, and clocked up over a million Spotify streams. Its songs have also been praised by Cillian Murphy, and covered by Christy Moore

“I felt huge pressure in writing it,” Brian recently said of the band's new album, in an interview published in the new issue of Hot Press. "Not to follow-up [The D...]. But we had great times with the last record, and we got great gigs that we didn’t get before. So for the band, to keep that going, I put more into writing these songs than I’ve ever put into anything we’ve done before.”

Taylor Swift once again leads the Official Irish Albums Chart this week with The Tortured Poets Department – while Zach Bryan debuts at No.2 with The Great American Bar Scene.

Over on the Independent Albums Chart, meanwhile, A Lazarus Soul are followed by Arctic Monkeys's AM (No.2), Frank Ocean's Blonde (No.3), KNEECAP's Fine Art (No.4) and The 2 Johnnies' Small Town Heroes (No.5).

A Lazarus Soul play Coughlan’s, Cork (August 23); Cleere’s, Kilkenny (24); and Vicar St, Dublin (26). They also support The The at Collins Barracks, Dublin (August 25).

You can read their full interview in the new issue of Hot Press, out now: