Our Rating 7/10

Soda Blonde – “Suit & Tie”

I have always considered Faye O’Rourke to be one of Ireland’s finest and most undervalued vocalists. How a voice like hers has not travelled globally is something I will never fully understand. Perhaps it speaks less to talent and more to the chronic inability of Ireland’s radio programmers to properly support their own domestic female songwriters. She could sing the alphabet and it would sound transcendent.

Long before Soda Blonde, there was Little Green Cars. And they were exceptional. Not in a fleeting hype-cycle way, but in a way that felt carefully built. Harmonies that wrapped around you. Lyrics that cut deep without theatrics. A band that understood restraint. That debut record, Absolute Zero, still stands as one of the most quietly devastating Irish releases ever. They were that good.

So when Soda Blonde emerged from that lineage, the expectation was not nostalgia. It was evolution. And “Suit & Tie” feels like another step in that arc.

Built around mood rather than spectacle, the track sits in a space of tension and reflection. O’Rourke’s exploration of displacement and un-belonging feels personal but also culturally resonant. There is something quietly Irish about questioning identity from within the Liberties, one of Dublin’s most rooted quarters, while feeling slightly unmoored from it. The song does not explode. It steadies itself. It leans into atmosphere, letting the emotional undercurrent do the work.

What remains constant, from Little Green Cars through to Soda Blonde, is the voice. That voice carries vulnerability without fragility. Strength without overreach. It commands attention without demanding it.

The announcement of their first North American headline tour feels overdue. If “Suit & Tie” is anything to go by, Soda Blonde are not chasing noise. They are building longevity.

And if there is any justice in the mechanics of this industry, that voice will travel much further yet.