The Goo 1
Singles Reviews ADHAMH O CAOIMH / MILES ANDERSON
/ SHAR DULLAGHAN / ADAM EDGEWORTH / JOHN BRERETON Aoife Wolf - ‘A Ringing In The Ear’ This brand new cut from woozy Belfast based psychfolk artist Aoife Wolf is a sultry, mellow affair. By turns dreamlike and psychedelic, the balmy instrumentation pushes and pulls like a warm and welcome tide before cresting into a languid chorus ebbing upon temperate waters. This latest single continues Wolfs exploration of dark, Cure and Warpaint adjacent folk rock and is an excellent new cut from a very gifted artist who commands a deft and artful introduction if you are unfamiliar. AOC Smythy - ‘Good Time’ Dublin singersongwriter Smythy’s first single from his upcoming debut EP is a summer tune with an indie/dream pop air about it. With a vocal style sounding like a mixture of Mac DeMarco & Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, ‘Good Time’ is a catchy, nostalgic song about embracing the indecisiveness of life and rolling with the punches because there’s something good waiting just around the corner. AE A MIXTURE OF MAC DEMARCO & TAME IMPALA'S KEVIN PARKER PAGE 10 The Smile - ‘Bending Hectic’ This incredible new epic from Radiohead offshoot The Smile stretches over 8 fascinating minutes, and more than anything sounds like a summation of everything great about that pairing of genii with infuriatingly spelt names, Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke. Greenwood’s prolific career as a composer looms large for the majority of the piece, with tender, spare guitar notes picked over delicate, dusty strings, courtesy of the London Contemporary Orchestra. Yorkes unmistakable apocalyptic tenor keens through orchestral swells and languorous, woozy guitarwork. Into its latter quarter, those strings tangle themselves up into the ascending pitches that characterised his incredible arrangements for ‘There Will Be Blood’, or Penderecki's immense ‘Threnody To The Victims of Hiroshima’ before the bomb drops, a huge distorted doomed punk section, all wailing bent notes and a howling vocal, gritty seventies style production, effortlessly summoning elegiac bombast in a way that Muse could only dream of. Mandatory. AOC LANGUOROUS, WOOZY GUITARWORK ØXN - ‘Love Henry’ With childlike vim I queued up ‘Love Henry’, the first monolithic yawn from ØXN, Claddagh Records first signees in almost two decades. As a longtime fan of the individual projects that make up the young beasts number, I am elated to report that the group is even more than the sum of its monumental parts. I am not at all surprised. Eleanor Mylers spare, tribal, metronomic percussion underpins a subtly enveloping composition, almost imperceptibly growing more torrential and intense. A downpour from a drizzle. Radie Peats’ unmistakeable voice plays against a single sustained tone before Katie Kim introduces herself in mournful harmony. Together, the pair are a dark revelation, two doomed threads intertwining within unfurling storms of Bayan drones, thunderous synthesis crashing around them, culminating in a deluging crescendo and near mantric incantations from the quartet. Musicians and producer, ‘Spud’ Murphy’s ever pitchperfect work captures the elemental coronach in exquisite detail, and the production sounding as characteristically immense and timeless as everything he’s put his hand to of late. Primordial, beautiful music. Imperative listening. AOC Soda Blonde - ‘Bad Machine’ Sodasweet brain worms from Dublin alternative pop five piece Soda Blonde, their first release since 2021’s well received ‘Small Talk’. This slickly produced slice of radio ready saccharine funk recalls some of the finer moments of the genre heavy hitters like Metric and Ladytron, with a nod here and there to some of the stylistic hallmarks of unconscionably successful artists akin to Miley Cyrus, or Taylor Swift circa 2012. A welcome return to the fray from the quintet, and speaks to good things from their forthcoming new record. AOC RADIO READY FUNK Glasseyed - ‘What A Day (To Rot Away)’ Dirty, plodding, and angsty 'what a day (to rot away)' reminds me of the heyday of grunge and other early 90's rock in the best way possible. The production and whispery vocals combine to form the bleak picture of life the title speaks of. Ending with what can only be described as a sick guitar solo over the vocals, the song finishes with a distortion filled bang. Recommended if you're a fan of anything grunge. MA