The Goo 1
Reviews Albums ETHAN GOLDING WILLZEE Kuti Gris CO
NFIDENT ZAC STEPHENSON Irish noisy shoegazJUST MUSTARD Heart Under HAZY, INDUSTRIAL AND EXCITING ALTERNATIVE-ROCK ers Just Mustard return with Heart Under, a cinematic and visceral follow-up to their underground breakthrough debut Wednesday. The album delivers on the promise the 5 piece showed in 2018 and is a hazy, industrial and exciting alternative-rock record that I will be revisiting for years to come. ‘Still’ is a sleek groove you could imagine Yeezus era Kanye rapping over, the kinda song you want to dance in the early hours at some dingy German club. ORAN O’BEIRNE RESTIVE NATION Restive Nation PAGE 14 Imagine a hybrid of Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Mars Volta and Tool, powered by the unorthodox approach of Killing Joke, sprinkled with an attention to detail that is so magnificent, it requires deep-diving into each track to find the glorious Easter eggs that lay scattered across the bands visuals, artwork and music. Meet Dublin’s Restive Nation. A group of brilliant minds that create music that could be described as “eclectic” to say the least. Their debut album consists of seven tracks [with three segues] that would have the likes of Gary Human and Trent Reznor grinning from ear-to-ear. Filed under Rock/Metal/Progressive, etc. Restive Nation are true sonic explorers that write mind-blowing music. Essential listening. ‘Seed’ is a swinging number that feels like Stevie Wonder’s Superstition covered by Gilla Band. On ‘Sore’, each part would seem uneventful if they were to exist in isolation, but the magic of Just Mustard is their ability to combine these disparate and dissonant textures into beautiful and emotive songs. Like My Bloody Valentine before them, Just Mustard creates their own specific universe on their records, and their world is not a cheery place. These are songs that you swim around in: you don’t drown, but you feel the pressure building on your chest as you dive deeper. Guitar swells that once sound so soothing, suddenly shift into intense industrial strength machine noises. ‘In Shade’ demonstrates their ability to marry these opposing sounds, while also somehow making one of the most accessible songs they’ve released to date, without compromising on the experimentation and intensity. Heart Under is a triumph and essential listening. Willzee’s debut album Kuti Gris is a confident and upfront exploration of the margins of our society. Hip-Hop is a marginal artform born from the spaces between sections of society, the cracks where the abandoned and abused fall down, perhaps this is why Ireland has always had a unique relationship with the genre. We see ourselves in the ethos of the art form but haven’t always been able to navigate the turbulent landscape of it. The heady conscious rap of Willzee seems at home in the turbulence. His roots in the travelling community ground him and lend an authenticity to his music that isn’t always there in subgenres outside of the US. The instrumentals provided by Enda Gallery & Matt Paull support the lyrical content perfectly, ebbing and flowing with the album, never overstepping the mark while also being able to bring the shine when needed.