Gilla Band – The Talkies review

This, the successor to the 2015’s critically acclaimed debut Holding Hands With Jamie, sees the Dubliners continue to expand and contract their sound, a maverick blast which fuses dank industrial noisescapes with a broken, free rolling approach to lyricism and vocal expression.

It goes without saying that experimentation leads to things being recorded that will shift it’s consumers out of their safe spaces. There’s little here by way of “traditional” melody, but after several run throughs the emotions within singer Dara Kiely’s sometimes barked lyrics separate a little and no matter how far removed it might be from your previous conceptions of what dancing have been, on Prefab Castle you’re invited to the oddest rave imaginable.

Megaphonic, obtuse words that mean something to no-one, a point blank refusal to compromise – although Gilla Band sound nothing like them, on The Talkies you’re reminded of The Fall and Mark E. Smith in all their curmudgeonly, rarified glory. Imagine that.

You can read a full review here.