All we could do was sing

These songs could legitimately be described as sea-shanties, given that singer Van Pierzowski works as a fisherman. In reality the album (on first listen) skirts a line between folk and indie rock. But as it progresses, that strange tone in principle singer Van Pierzowski’s voice (as it rattles along easing from an easy-going tunefulness to a muted scream) becomes clear – it’s the sound of small-town frustration. The album’s called All We Could Do Is Sing because “when you’re working all day in the freezing cold, what the hell else are you going to do?” So the record opens like a depressed singalong at the Gaeltacht with a mass of voices emoting the title-track alongside a picked guitar, a relentless beat and a lonely fiddle. And as folksiness, indieness and bittersweet mournfulness set the tone, it also becomes apparent that this is much better than the words ‘folk’ and ‘indie’ on their own suggest. It’s the sound of repressed genius, I think. Kind of like the Flaming Lips with limited horizons, or Arcade Fire if Win Butler didn’t know enough people to fill out his band. And the autobiographical songs and lovely arrangements sound wonderful stretching against their limits.