Here, then, and in no particular order, are our albums of the year . . .
Romance - Fontaines D.C.
On their fourth album, Ireland's best band in decades ascended to another level entirely. Romance revealed just how far Grian Chatten, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, Tom Coll and Carlos O'Connell have come and what they were really capable of. By turns nihilistic, poetic, tender and yes, romantic, there is plenty of the band’s blunt post-punk but also foreboding orchestration, clanging sound effects, muted electronica, nu-metal and an empty warehouse of echoes and snatched vocals.
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On Romance, the band sift through the embers of the past few years of No 1s, industry awards and almost universal acclaim to re-locate what made them yearn and dream in the first place when they formed in 2017 - and they often come up with some very uncomfortable answers. As for hits, try Starburster, and an actual moment of radio friendly pop with Favourite. Read our full review.
Fine Art - Kneecap
They started the year by rocking up to one of the film industry’s most prestigious festivals in their customised RUC jeep and leaving with an award for their riotous self-titled biopic and ended it by looking like Ireland’s best bet for an Oscar this February. In between, the West Belfast rap trio of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí left arch Tory Kemi Badenoch with egg on her face and wore their political allegiances literally on their sleeves and chests. So, it’s easy to forget that Kneecap also dropped a great album in the shape of their debut proper Fine Art. Great title, great songs. It’s a scuzzy, hilarious and dangerous journey into Nighttown Belfast, a mad hubbub of Irish and English, hip hop and trad, house music and punk that never lets up on energy levels and the pursuit of good clean devilment.
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With the sheer swaggering hometown pride of The Beastie Boys, the lyrical chutzpah of Eminem and maybe a hint of Wu Tang’s gothic villainy, Kneecap embrace Belfast in all its beauty and ugliness. Not since the heady early nineties days of wayward Dublin crew Scary Éire has an Irish hip-hop act sounded so vital and energetic. Talk about making an exhibition of themselves. Full review here.
O Avalanche - Fionn Regan
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In which the impish Bray wanderer embraces a more intimate sound than the rustic folk of his superb back catalogue. Always elusive and impressionistic, Regan's voice is buried deeper into the mix here on a record bathed in golden light. Maybe inspired by Leonard Cohen’s years on the Greek island of Hydra, he decamped to the Majorcan town of Deià and wrote O Avalanche in the home of his friend, actor Anna Friel, who sings backing vocals. There’s a woozy sense of euphoria to the whole thing and Regan sounds like he’s deep into the mystic. This album seemed to slip through the cracks this year but from the gamboling acoustic guitars of Anja II, which recalls Fleet Foxes at their most pastoral, to the churchy ambience of Deià Song/Llucalcara, you should let this one wash over you.
Madra - NewDad
"We make music that you can listen to with your parents, and if you come to a gig with them, they'll probably enjoy it more than you!" Hardly the stuff of world shaking musical innovation but that quote from Galway's NewDad was music to the ears to pop pickers of a certain vintage. All darkly confessional lyrics, cooing vocals and basslines you could hang a bridge from, the wonderfully titled Madra is so 1991 it should come with a fringe and s stripy t-shirt. The youthful outfit of singer/guitarist Julie Dawson, bassist Cara Joshi, drummer Fiachra Parslow and guitarist Sean O'Dowd play it straight and with real commitment. Madra shimmers and blisters and also rocks like a beast. At the centre of the controlled storm of emotion and guitars is 23-year-old Dawson, who sounds like an ice maiden with a poisoned pen and a tear-stained diary. For anyone who likes a bit of indie pop classicalism, this is the dog’s.
Come and See - Gurriers
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Cut from the same crooked timber as Idles, Shame, Sprints and Fontaines D.C., Dublin five-piece Gurriers managed to distil the ferocity of their live shows on their scorching debut album, Come And See. The band’s urgent, politically-charged post-punk is delivered in front man Daniel Hoff’s flat Dublinese, as he seethes against the perils of social media, religion and feeling left behind by the me, me, me generation. As he sings on recent single Dipping Out, "failed by a system that never really lets you exist." As the old saying goes, they mean it, maaaaan!
International albums of 2024
This Could Be Texas - English Teacher
In what was a year of great debut albums, This Could Be Texas by English Teacher was among the very best. Hailing from Leeds and Lancashire and fronted by Lily Fontaine, who also plays rhythm guitar, synthesizer, they may seem like that most old fashioned of things - an indie guitar band but This Could Be Texas is bursting with quirky ideas and moods, from the spectral Mastermind Specialism to a deadpan observation about how Britain is careering off a cliff edge in a handcart on the quietly furious Broken Biscuits. A head-on collision between the demotic and the arcane, these 13 songs pack a real punch. They're as Smithsian as they wanna be on I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying and Fontaine brushes off presumptions about her mixed race heritage on R&B. Midway through side two, they’re even entering into Floydian/Radiohead atmospherics. Arty, witty and waspish.
Songs Of A Lost World - The Cure
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The Cure have played many epic shows over the past 16 years, not least in Ireland, but the veteran band's first new album since 2008 was the real seismic event for the faithful huddled masses. Never likely to become slaves to the whims of fashion, musical or otherwise, Captain Bob and his band of happy campers double down on what made them so magical and mysterious all those years ago on Songs Of A Lost World. It’s a funereal, foreboding, orchestral set on which the 65-year-old singer picks over the ruins of his life and contemplates the inevitability of death. It’s monolithically austere and magisterial stuff (the churning psychodrama of Warsong is among their very best ever songs). The album’s final line is "Left alone with nothing at the end of every song" - Smith may be weeping into the void but there is something uplifting and heroic beating away under the turmoil and grief.
Brat - Charlie XCX
No matter where you turned this year there was no avoiding Charli XCX's culture shifting brat album. It’s neon lime green cover art and lower case font laid down the gauntlet with 15 pop bangers fizzing with cool moves and bubbling over with a strange mix of in-your-face confidence and vulnerability. From her breathless love letter to noughties rave culture, the slippery Club Classics, to the eerie Billie Eilish indebted I Might Say Something Stupid, brat covered all the bases in grand style. Here was an album that became an event, transcending the mere music industry to became a cultural phenomenon.
Prelude to Ecstasy - The Last Dinner Party
Maybe because it was because they looked like a bunch of Brontë heroines raiding the dressing-up box or maybe it was because they did something as verboten as playing unironic, full blooded guitar solos, but The Last Dinner Party seemed to get up a lot of people's noses this year. They arrived fully minted and garlanded with praise and prizes but also accusations of manufactured fakery (imagine that!?) and posh girl rock. No matter - the young all-woman London quintet delivered a freakishly assured debut with Prelude to Ecstasy. A toppling wedding cake of an album, this is big time sensuality delivered with hugely ambitious rock theatrics and the cutglass hauteur of singer Abigail Morris. It's so much more than just a frothy goth psychodrama.
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