Amidst the hipster pretenders at this year’s Longitude festival, Girl Band stuck out like a very welcome sore thumb. The Dubliners are, without question, one of the most innovative and distinctive acts in the country, channeling the filth and fury of The Birthday Party and the angular guitars of The Fall and Pavement.
A warning: if you pine for neat verse/chorus/ verse songs and nice pretty melodies, best move along. On the other hand, if sweet, sweet noise is what you crave, dive straight in. The water is choppy, but fantastically bracing.
Opening track ‘Umbongo’ is a wall of sound that is strange, comforting and foreboding all at the same time. From there on and all the way through to the blistering and brilliant closer ‘The Witch Doctor’, Girl Band have delivered what is now – and almost certainly will be – the Irish debut album of 2015.