Music Reviews
Albums, singles and live performances analysed beyond the hype. We explore artistry, authorship and the systems influencing what gets heard.
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9/10 There’s a very fine line when artists cover Fix You. Get it wrong and it becomes karaoke wrapped in expensive production. Get it right and you uncover something hidden inside the song that listeners forgot was there. Sonaírí achieved the latter. Irish duo Sonaírí, consisting of Irish soprano Amie Dyer and tenor David Corr,…
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8/10 Daði Freyr has always occupied a curious space in modern pop. Too eccentric to be conventional chart-pop, too emotionally sincere to be dismissed as novelty, and too musically sharp to fade into the endless algorithmic sludge currently swallowing the genre whole. Like many others, you may have first discovered Daði in 2020 with his…
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Our Rating 8/10 There is a quiet precision to Ailbhe Reddy’s Kiss Big that sets it apart from much of the current indie landscape. It does not compete for attention. It earns it gradually. The record is built on restraint. Arrangements are deliberately minimal, allowing space for both vocal delivery and lyrical detail to carry…
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Our Rating: 10/10 There is a fine line between evolution and repetition in pop, and Olivia Rodrigo has spent the last few years walking it carefully. “Drop Dead” lands as a calculated step forward, not a reinvention, but a tightening of what already works. At surface level, the track holds all the hallmarks of her…
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There is a particular kind of pop song that does not just arrive; it carries people with it. With “So Long, Solo”, Collette Brady-McEntee steps firmly into that space. Written within a collaborative songwriting environment and shaped by the hands of experienced writers, the track holds both scale and substance. It is built on connection,…
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Dótts O’Connor sits in that space Irish music does best when it’s honest about itself. There’s no overproduction of identity, no chasing of trend cycles, just a steady pull toward storytelling that feels lived in rather than constructed. His work leans into narrative, not as a stylistic choice but as a necessity, shaped by place,…
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We reviewed Sean Griffin’s single “Be My Girl” a few months back, a track that hinted at something more stripped and more personal sitting just beneath the surface. Now, with his debut solo album People Are Mad out in the world, that shift comes fully into focus. After decades fronting The Ruffians and building a…
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Our Rating 7/10 There’s a point in an artist’s career where the question shifts. It stops being about how big they can go and starts being about what they choose to hold onto once they’ve already been there. The Weight of the Woods sits right in that space. This is Dermot Kennedy pulling everything inward.…
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Our Rating 10/10 Some songs arrive loudly, demanding attention. Others move differently. “Intimacy” doesn’t push its way in. It draws you closer, slowly, until you realise you’ve stepped into something far more exposed than expected. This is Loah working with intent and control. The production is stripped back but deliberate, built around space rather than…
The Industry Review 