The Goo 1
Albums Junior Brother – The End – Christian Wethe
red Junior Brother’s The End is dense, chaotic, and wholly his own - a record that pulls apart form while still feeling rooted in something deep and ritualistic. Across eleven tracks, it lurches and coils: pipes spill over, drums are skeletal and strange, and harmonies double and Buckle. The album opens innocently, with a clean flute line on ‘Welcome to My Mountain’. But it quickly warps into something weirder - a ragged ritual of clattering percussion and looping guitar. That sense of warped tradition carries through much of the record. ‘Small Violence’ feels like a reversed lullaby, its thick, layered harmonies pressing the air out of the mix. In this song, misinformation spreads like a virus. Elsewhere, ‘The Kerry Polka’ swings wildly in its breathless rhythm and clipped guitar. ‘Old Bell’ introduces a figure compelled to sing: “things that are hard to listen to.” His voice rides a deep, strange groove, somewhere between jester and prophet. The final track, ‘New Road’, opens space for the first time - reverb arrives, Ian Lynch’s pipes stretch outward, and the last line, “makes way”, hangs quietly in the air. The End doesn’t end. It narrows, presses in, and leads you astray. Tigre into At The Drive-In. A deadpan delivery of verse from Rachel Brown has a more angelic chorus. It’s underpinned by metal riffs and heavy grunge and immediately arresting. ‘Nights or Armour’ has jangly indie over a 4/4 and guttural bass. ‘Born 2’ is a triumph with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’, more heavy grunge and Sepultura’s kick drum. ‘You Don’t Believe in God’ is a BOC-style pensive moment, to perhaps non-judgmentally examine one’s faith. ‘Spaceship’ is a little more on brand, pouring Indian influences and strings into the melting pot while the beats get more broken and reversed as the track progresses. ‘Playing Classics’ is monumental. Like they invited James Murphy into the booth to create an early ‘90s club experience, twinned with Wet Leg. In a decade, playing classics will mean spinning this tune. ‘Blood on the Dollar’ is a gorgeous piece of Americana and acts like a cigarette after sex. This should be near the top of the pile come AOTY time. Slyrydes - What Happens If You Get Happy - David Carr Water From Your Eyes - It’s A Beautiful Place - David Carr Listening to the previous two albums, Chicago’s Water From Your Eyes, you could use adjectives like dizzying, experimental-pop to describe them. It makes them sound kind of kooky, and they are, but you could also use the words challenging and abrasive. Now, I own and love these two albums, but I’d have to have a good think about when and where to play these albums out. There’s no such trouble with their latest album. The first single, ‘Life Signs’, is epic. It smashes Le 12 I bought their first single ‘Mental Health’ a very long time ago. I know because I’m the second supporter on Bandcamp. For these Galway punks, it’s been a long road from 2019 through to now, though it feels appropriate that all seven singles appear on this, their debut LP. That first single is the album opener and is “A frank take on the shambolic Irish Health Service”. Singer Mark Rafferty screaming “I’ve got a letter from the HSE” seems as relevant as ever. These distinctly domestic subjects really resonate. ‘Boy in the Debs Suit’ is brim full of pathos, in a particular Irish way, and could happily sit on The Murder Capital debut. The still immense ‘Dangerous Animals’ examines those that opine “How can I be racist when some of my friends are black?” ‘Famous to Five Million’ deals with the cult of Irish celebrity. The deeply affecting ‘Just For Show’ turns the shocking statistics about suicide into an anthem. All the while, the lyrics are on point and intelligent. The music is frenetic but standing just as strong. Tracks like ’Ahern’ with its Fugazi riffs or ‘Procrastination Is a Fear of Failure’ with its Protomartyr rhythms show an ability to take the songs anywhere. Slow and steady, they might have won the race to Irish AOTY in 2025.