NEVER judge a music act by their name.
One might think that Louth/Meath seven-piece The Cacks (yes, I know…) and their debut album, Celebrity, offer a juvenile blend of Blink-182 or Bowling for Soup – over-the-hill frat boys taking the mickey out of subjects that some people regard as almost untouchable.
Not a bit of it. Recorded in Black Mountain Studios, (which rests high up in the Cooley Mountains), Celebrity is one of those pleasant surprises that pop up unannounced and with no fanfare.
In other words, it’s grounded work from grounded people — although we’d like to know which member of the band was brave enough to pose for the album cover.
Between songs that veer from rootsy (Remedy, When I Am to Die), reggae (Nom Nom Nom), Americana (Lava Beds, Two Weeks) and pop/funk (the title track, Two Weeks), The Cacks, as befits their name, are all mouth and trousers.
The Cacks have released CelebrityOne songwriter who has been up against the wall is Seán Mulrooney, whose latest album, This Is My Prayer, is the result of many years of living, loving, making music and having your heart shattered into tiny pieces.
Irish music fans with firm memories will know of Mulrooney largely through his involvement with Humanzi, who left Dublin for Berlin many years ago.
Mulrooney stayed in the German capital for 13 years, returning home to not only self-care following the breakdown of a relationship but also to reconnect with his rooted native influences.
As such, the songs are fine examples of folk music infused with hazy psychedelic sensibilities and just the right measure of trad flourishes.
Sean Mulrooney„Every thought is a prayer, every word is a spell,“ he sings on Ag Músclaighacht, one of eight compelling tracks on an album that is worth your time and attention.
You can say the same for indie folk band Norabelle and their second album, The Mountain Blinks.
Some 14 years have passed since the band’s 2011 debut album (Wren), so you could safely guess that life and its sometimes messy details have got in the way.
Inevitably, the deeply personal songs explore (as lead singer Ken Clarke says) “themes of memory, grief, and the fragility of life… my own experiences of loss and how those memories shape us, even when they’re fleeting or unreliable.”
Norabelle’s The Mountain BlinksBrief or untrustworthy though those memories may be, you can’t say the same about the songs, each of which unfolds slowly, truthfully, and elegantly.
In essence, this is mood music, perfect for quiet, reflective moments best experienced at the dimming of the day.
There is history and the usual consequences of lives being lived when it comes to certain bands.
Take Belfast’s The Adventures, for instance. In the late ‘70s, some of the core members used to be in the punk/pop band The Starjets. When tastes changed in the early ‘80s, The Adventures formed with moderate success, creeping to a halt in 1993.
The AdventuresFast forward a few decades, and the band’s new album, Once More with Feeling, delivers, to the credit of all involved, much more than nostalgia or (even worse) a thirst for former glories.
The songs are sprightly, contemporary, and imbued with an intuitive knack for memorable melodies, perhaps most obviously on tracks such as L.U.C.Y., Song for You, and the impressively Beatles-esque To Whom It Concerns.
New adventures start here? It would seem so.
Explorations of the sonic variety continue with Somebody’s Child and their second album When Youth Fades Away.
Cian Godfrey, as he’s known to his family and the passport authorities, has been tipping around the fringes for about eight years (we recall single tracks by Somebody’s Child being released in 2018/2019), but for some unexplainable reason, he hasn’t yet dented the mainstream.
We say ‘inexplicable’ because (and despite close to 20 million streams on Spotify) there isn’t anything on this album that would spook even the wariest of horses.
Somebody’s ChildRather, there is a radio-friendly sheen to the songs that make you think of the following: sold-out venues, sold-out venues and sold-out venues.
The songs also make you think of music acts like The Killers, Kraftwerk, The National, and the quieter moments of Bruce Springsteen.
It adds up to the kind of album that should, by rights, lead to far bigger things for someone who has been knocking on the door too often to be ignored for much longer.
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