Alchemisland

Recently I’ve been attempting to recall the results of a certain patch-decked census, namely the list of one-off punk bands I’ve seen over the years. Next came another, more troubling thought: if tomorrow morning a hemorrhage turned my wits to water, who would wrest this mantle and detail those defunct Irish punk and metal bands who split without leaving behind a recording? If not I, then who?

Rather than spouting a list of band names so unheard as to seem almost religiously profane when uttered aloud, I recall only the time when conjuring a selection suchlike was easy and did not require considerable aforethought, which counts as work and is thus un-punk. 

Perhaps it’s misremembrance which worries most. 

Striving to immortalize these rarities which, like rare nightbugs, enter one’s ear and soon thereafter die, I will compile these annals myself. I’ve opted for a regular selection of arbitrary Irish underground and alternate tunes. Mostly punk and extreme metal, although there’s post-punk, bassy weirdness, drone, rock&roll and hip hop throughout.

I haven’t yet considered breakdown metrics. By subgenre or county of origin perhaps, but that’s for a future iteration to say. Just count your good sense badges and be glad I didn’t use the originally planned ‘Pale Shadows’ and ‘From the Bog’ headings for Dublin and rest-of-country songs respectively.

From the forge of Hephaestus to your plateless breast, three of my favourite underground Irish songs:

Violins is Not the Answer – Sick

Unless someone’s asking what luthiers make, Violins is Not the Answer. However, Violins were someone’s answer when they tore the tucked shirt off Galway punkdom with their raucous 2011 debut Green Diesel and Poitin. It’s a time-tested sob story of Irish scene cohesion that lets so fresh a band go unnoticed, unhailed and handsomely unkempt outside their home county; it’s this exact myopia, although antipode, which confined Lovecraft in Rhode Island and left Howard’s hypothalamus on the dash under a Cross Plains sun. 

Aside from the band themselves, I doubt there’s another  person alive who has heard this album more than I. I’ve proudly flown that battered, cider-stained flag throughout a local and global invasion until Violins, not 42, became the answer, at least for me.

Has it really been that long? Eight years on it still excites much as the first time. Its engine-revving opening track conjures images of sputtering roadsters chewing the starting line of a Mad Max outback race, while the final upstroked riddums of its GBH-esque closer Sick promises the tinny best of Shitty Limits alongside the somber heights of FNM’s Midlife Crisis.

Guitars that sound like they’re being played with chainmail’d fingers, vorpal bass tapping, ska pick it ups to HxC stick it ups (middle fingers in this instance), Green Diesel crams a maelstrom of alt genres into a curt 26-ish minute runtime. Ben’s phlegm-tinged vocals lead the sonic vanguard, bolstered and occasionally shelved in favour of fireman-cum-drummer Donal’s softer warble on cryptid welfare anthem Vampire on the Dole.

Sick is my favourite tune. The song, the album’s only track exceeding a three minute runtime, combines everything that makes Violins worth ear-time in the epoch of overchoice. Although Class Ayes and Dickheads Picnic deliver the nutkicks exactly how frontman Ben, of Psychopigs, Hardcore Priests and Doppelskangerz fame, wants them delivered, Sick offers a sample book of greatness to come across two recorded albums. Containing an otolaryngologist-approved mix of harsh shouting and actual singing, Ben’s disarming foghorn timbre sweeps us slowly toward the finish after a suppressing fire of growled insistence, “You ain’t never gonna come//between me and my bottle.”

Fans of short time good time are well served with riffy tunes in the vein of punchier Propagandhi songs, albeit playfully apolitical. Littered with in-jokes and avowedly pro substance, these tracks stink of fun in the studio, a subterranean lodge affectionately christened the Fritzl Bunker. Even angry songs fizz with youthful energy. It makes me want to drink malibu from a shoe in GG Allin’s house. It rouses me to a bubbling zenith of bacchic hedonism which Andrew W.K. can’t hold a candle to. 

There’s much here not found elsewhere; adjoining on Keytar Mr Jimmy Penguin of Skratch Games fame, his genius confined only by the breadth of his current interest; also the album’s producer. You can tell Jimmy put work on this record. Every groove is warm and tipped to perfect balance with just the right amount of hiss; right in the sense that it’s sometimes wrong. 

Since disbanded, there’s two albums worth of raw riffage to enjoy. From Refused rip-offs and Exploited shouts-outs to Elvis Costello tracks played backwards, find this album, buy a CD and tell your Granny this picnic is for dickheads.

I’m rambling. Violins is not the Answer. For my money, the best punk band in Ireland post 2010.

https://violinsisnottheanswer.bandcamp.com/track/sick

Divisions Ruin – Srebrenica/Merely Existing

I won’t lie. Much like a former athlete whose varsity gout impeded athletic excellence, I’ve had to settle here. I wanted the track Srebrenica from Division Ruin’s side of the Easpa Measa split – another band we’ll encounter later, or if not here than absolutely in future installments, should they ere be writ. 

I have the vinyl. Whenever I want to sonically experience withstanding a carpet bombing, I stick the needle down, turn the table over, sit in the lotus position and wait for oblivion. This track absolutely slays. The opening riff, an atomic discharge of heavy bass, distorted guitar and technical drumming from the scene stalwart and filler-player-extraordinaire John K, sears the ears, and one might be forgiven for touching that dial. Then the vocals come. Impassioned howls from the furious maw of Cirarot, which sound almost prehistoric in their primal ferocity. With my eyes closed, I feel the cymbal crashes like great waves and imagine people of the dawn age battling terrible beasties, although I’m not sure if she’s the lizard or its prospective prey. 

Although all their recorded tracks offer something for filth-seekers, I struggled to find another which accurately conveyed with sufficient brutality the blunt force flavour Srebrenica proffers. However you locate this song, ensure you’ve your iodine pills to hand; shit is about to get nuclear. In lieu of an active link, here’s another hefty slab from the same split.