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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This week’s selection spans powerful songwriting, bold artistic reinvention, viral momentum and socially conscious storytelling. From Ireland to the international stage, these are the songs that have caught our ear and sparked conversation across the industry. Lola Young – “From Down Here” Fresh from a remarkable period of professional success and a well-earned rest, Lola…
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Why Century Artists Might Be One Of The Most Interesting New Irish Music Projects This Year What happens when one of opera’s most rebellious female characters collides with contemporary Irish rap culture? Dublin producer Louis Ryan’s new project Century Artists is betting that the answer lies somewhere between Georges Bizet’s nineteenth-century opera house and the…
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With the release of her new instrumental single “Golden Hour” set for June 12th, Nashville-based singer-songwriter and fiddler Jessica Willis Fisher returns to the Irish musical roots that first shaped her artistic identity. Inspired by her experience winning the Grúpaí Cheoil competition at the 2012 All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in Cavan, the track captures a pivotal…
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At just seventeen years old, Niamh Noade finds herself standing at a fascinating crossroads. Raised in County Armagh and immersed in Irish music from an early age, Noade has spent much of her young life surrounded by melody, storytelling and tradition. A multi-award-winning harpist, finalist in Junior Eurovision and a familiar face on the Fleadh…
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In an era where electronic music often leans heavily towards escapism, spectacle and algorithm-friendly singles, Swedish producer Fred Rydén is taking a different route. His latest album, The Way To The Good Life, is not simply a collection of dance tracks designed to fill playlists or soundtrack late-night club sets. Instead, it is a sixteen-track…
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8/10 Wallis Bird has never sounded particularly interested in perfection, and thank Christ for that. “Hold Tight!” works precisely because it feels alive. Messy in places. Urgent. Warm. Full of movement and breath and friction. In an era where so much contemporary folk-pop arrives vacuum-sealed and emotionally overmanaged, Wallis continues to sound gloriously human. Released…
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7/10 A Must-Watch, Must Listen To, and Must See Live Band! Akrobat’s new single “Dirty Gathering” arrives like a slow leak of tension through concrete. Nothing about it rushes to impress you. Instead, it coils itself gradually around atmosphere, restraint and unease, revealing a band increasingly comfortable in mood, texture and ambiguity rather than obvious…
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There’s a rare kind of artist who doesn’t simply write songs but builds emotional landscapes people quietly carry with them long after the music stops. Irish singer-songwriter Molly O’Mahony belongs firmly in that category. With her new album, O’Mahony delivers a body of work shaped by love, grief, uncertainty, nature, and the emotional static of…
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9/10 *Part of our throwback album review series. With Blindness, The Murder Capital have delivered the strongest and most fully realised record of their career so far. Not because it is cleaner or more commercially accessible, but because the band finally sound completely unconcerned with fitting neatly inside the increasingly exhausted “post-punk revival” label that…
The Industry Review 