Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
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Wednesday, August 27, 2025
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Thursday, August 21, 2025
Queens of the Stone Age – Royal Hospital Kilmainham – 20/08/25 – Live Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
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Wednesday, August 13, 2025
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Tuesday, August 5, 2025
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Tuesday, June 17, 2025
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Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts – Talkin to the Trees – Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
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Monday, June 9, 2025
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
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Monday, April 28, 2025
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Monday, April 14, 2025
The Cruellest Month – National Concert Hall – 13/04/25 – Live Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Monday, March 31, 2025
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
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Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
PJ Harvey - Is This Desire?
You could
argue PJ Harvey is one of the most interesting artists of the last 30 years. Her fourth album, released in 1998, was
recorded in collaboration with John Parish.
It starts with the fairly muted Angelene, which unfurls gradually,
building pleasingly to a chorus of “2000 miles away”. There are a couple of
noisier tracks here. The Sky Lit Up
kicks things up on a notch but it’s a quick sub-two minute blast, while the two
minute My Beautiful Leah and Joy are almost industrial-sounding, the latter
featuring gentle clanging before cutting off abruptly.
But for the
most part the album is made of muted, mysterious tracks with little instrumentation
other than a prominent, moody bassline. These
tracks (The Wind, Catherine and Electric Light) are by and large excellent. There are a couple of more ‘traditional-sounding’
PJ Harvey tracks, not guitar-heavy rockers by any means but more fleshed out
tracks. The gnarling A Perfect Day Elise
has a soaring chorus, while The Garden and The River have sweet-sounding piano
and keyboards, the latter also feautiring a nice bit of trumpet.
The relatively
rocking No Girl So Sweet has PJ cutting loose completely on vocals and the
track turns into a glorious racket, but it’s back to muted glory for the title
track where PJ sings sultry and sweetly.
It’s another really high quality collection of songs from PJ Harvey.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Monday, March 3, 2025
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Fields of the Nephilim - Elizium
The third album
from Fields of the Nephilim, released in 1990, could be viewed as a departure
from, or an evolution of the band’s sound.
After a brief intro (Dead But Dreaming), we get For Her Light, a
standard issue goth track, though here Carl McCoy actually sings more than
gargling with broken glass. At the Gates
of Silent Memory follows seamlessly, and is quite portentous. Slow and doomy. This is rounded off with (Paradise Regained)
which sparks into life. Much of the
album is sequenced like one long track.
Submission
opens with a low bassline and a faint keyboard line. Between this and McCoy’s intonation “where have I been” you are
reminded of Joy Division’s Decades, though you also get squalling guitars in
the midsection. It’s a decent track,
though it’s a few minutes longer than it needs to be. Sumerland (What Dreams May Come) has intricate
gothy guitar work, building up deliberately to great effect for an entire 11 minutes. The final two tracks are the closest songs to
Pink Floyd that McCoy and co released.
Wail of Sumer plods like mid 70s Floyd, leading into And There Will Your
Heart Be Also, another long, seven minute plus song. This one has a particularly haunting melody, probably the most
emotional on the album.
It’s a kind
of long moody album with not much variety, tracks all kind of evolve from each
other. Not a bad thing by any means,
it’s just different from its predecesssors.
There are fewer peaks and standouts and thus is a bit harder to get into
than Dawnrazor or the Nephilim.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
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Monday, February 17, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Swervedriver - Raise
Swervedriver
released their debut in 1991. Designed to be played LOUD, it's an absolute
guitarfest, gauzy riffs bouncing off each other right from the opener Sci
Flyer. Adam Franklin's vocals are a little muddy and muttered which takes
a bit of getting used to, but just succumb to those guitars.
It really is
a driving album. Riff after riff
follows, with the heavy rush of Pile Up spelling that out, Franklin singing “let's
just drive”, quickly followed up by the pounding Son of Mustang Ford.
These are hard-rocking songs, with the latter's riff being particularly
addictive.
After this
the album slows a little, which actually suits them. Deep Seat takes it's
time to build up to its hard-rocking, meaty riff. The tracks are less
traditional verse/chorus tunes but more vehicles for their grungy guitar work
on the likes of Rave Down and Sunset.
The most epic
track is the penultimate one, Sandblasted. With a grinding, Pete
Townshend-esque central riff, they slow the pace down at the key moments on
this track which makes for a joyous moment.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Cian Nugent/ David Murphy / Matthew Nolan & Guests – The Fumbally – Gig Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
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