Harmless Noise
A music blog from Ireland.
A music blog from Ireland.
(No Ratings Yet)Quite some time since I last posted about Overhead, The Albatross considering what a busy year the instrumental sextet had in 2011 with the release of their first EP Lads With Sticks on the ElevenEleven label. There were rakes of gigs, one which I remember so clearly being the last-ever Dublin show with C!ties in Whelans. Now, after some downtime, they’ve released a new single Think, Thank, Thunk.
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In a way, it feels really weird for me to listen to instrumental rock again because I kinda overdosed on the whole unvocal thing for a few years, locking my head away with EitS and GY!BE, overdosing on math rock and going out to gigs to see GIAA, Butterfly Explosion and of course Adebisi and ASIWYFA, along with a whole realm of electronic and ambient sounds. I don’t think lyrics are crucial to music but I reached saturation point I think, and I felt like I’d heard it all and wanted to rejoin verbal communication. The reason for this ramble? All those years of listening tell me this song is really, really good.
At nine minutes, it’s like a complete gig overpowered and crushed into a single set as it moves through a number of forms, each of the instruments taking their turns to shine, the keys swimming at three minutes, the flinches of percussion, grave-deep bass, the guitars really lifting off around seven minutes. There’s a final spoken segment for the last minute or so, followed by an applause track – the applause is actually the only downside and seems a bit affected, especially since I cranked up the volume and was accosted by the horribly discordant clapclapclap. But it’s easy enough to avoid once you know it’s coming.
At just €1 to download from Bandcamp, all proceeds from the Think, Thank, Thunk single go to the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association, a very worthy cause that aims to help those affected by the disease and its effects of muscular impairment. As you can see by the photo above, Overhead The Albatross are highly energetic and constantly moving, so it’s a corresponding way of one state helping to improve the other.
You can stream the Lads With Sticks EP on the music player tab below.
overheadthealbatross.bandcamp.com
Photo credit :: Sean Cahill.
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