Burials

You have to wonder why a band like The Ambience Affair isn’t already the biggest thing in Irish music. For the past three years, their live shows, which operate in a similar way to Owen Pallett’s stripped-back loop-led performances, have regularly attracted ample crowds, their Celtic-tinged folk rock has earned them comparisons with Grizzly Bear, Wilco and a handful of other esteemed stateside acts, and when they posted ‘The Fallen’ – the first tune from Burials to fall on civilian ears – on their Facebook page, it racked up 500 listens in a day. An earlier track ‘Parting Patterns’ even featured on an episode of CSI: New York last year, which, granted, is hardly a testament to the band’s musical prowess, but it did inspire over 10,000 people to look the song up on YouTube.
Guitarist Jamie Clarke, drummer Marc Gallagher and the latest addition to the Ambience Affair family, bassist Yvonne Ryan, will certainly be hoping that Burials is the record to bring about their much-deserved shift in luck. I’m not one to tempt fate, so I’ll just say this; it’s an absolute beaut.

What The Ambience Affair have created here is the opposite to sissy rock: a dauntless, robust sound that’s full of grit, but also inherently elegant. It’s a tough combination to pull off. Major labels in the UK spit out at least one band per year who make it their mission to fill the public brain with swagger-fuelled cock rock (this year it was Viva Brother née Brother), but rarely is there such an artful overleaf.
Take ‘Tearing At The Seams’, a track that’s delicate in melody, but something about its rolling rhythms and murky riffs make it strikingly masculine. Similarly, ‘(---)’ seems like a pretty piano ditty at the outset, but like the rest of Burials, it’s brimming with conflict. Clarke’s vocals sound delightfully feral throughout, particularly on ‘War Weary’, a two-fisted battle song with plenty of underlying groove (you’ll be glad to learn that the track continues with a part two and three).
All in all, Burials is a beautiful blitzkrieg: thoughtful, accomplished, powerful, and if you can accept this next word without picturing a breastplate-clad soldier with a Louise Brooks bob, valiant.