Ham Sandwich have been around so long now that it's easy to forget that the band's name is actually Ham Sandwich (or HamsandwicH as they're styling it). Despite a high-profile support slot with Arcade Fire last year and a sold-out Olympia Theatre show, it has been five years since the band's breakthrough album White Fox.
That all changes with Stories From The Surface which is released on April 17th. The band's latest single, the third from the album, Fandango is reminiscent of a glockenspiel-added version of The National with Niamh Farrell providing a necessary female counterpoint to Podge McNamee's jagged supporting vocals.
Don't Be A Wasteman
Limerick continues to represent as the home of Irish hip-hop. Rusangano Family, the trio made up of producer MynameisjOhn, MuRli and God Knows are the best thing to happen to the genre in Ireland in recent memory. The combination of frenetic beats inspired by subgenres of electronic musics into hip-hop combined with the kinetic profane-free rhymes is a potent one, as heard on new track, Wasteman, which suggests doing something with your life. These guys certainly are.
The Dublin band Spies are a bunch of young lads in their twenties who are heavily indebted to the spirit of eighties indie and rock music. Their latest track Quincy Morris, billows wonderfully across its starry four minute running time. It's from the band's Sea Creature EP out on March 30th.
Groomed for goodbyes
This week we said goodbye to Popical Island label band Groom who called time on the band with a final show in Whelan's and a final salutory song, Another Day. The band's third album Bread and Jam, released in 2014 was their finest collection of songs about Irish life, which contained a song called Moving To Athlone, perhaps a hint of plans for the now disbanded group.
Bands come and go of course all the time. In the latter category, meet Cut Once, a new electronic project started by Temple Lane Studios head engineer Michael Heffernan with vocalist Aisling Browne.
Their debut single Institution has a stunning video and the song takes its cue from the brooding electronic pop that put singers like Banks on the international music map last year.
South by Southwest (SXSW), the music industry's annual spring break/music industry convention/giant advertising hoarding/festival came and went last week in Austin, Texas. 14 Irish bands played the festival and as this paper's SXSW resident reporter Jim Carroll will attest, it was the grunge assault of Dubliners Girl Band who made the loudest noise and grabbed the most attention of the Irish contingent. The band are already signed to UK label Rough Trade which helps at SXSW, a place where thousands of bands are hoping for a breakthrough.
Couch By Couchwest
Meanwhile, the antidote to SXSW, the online performance video series Couch By Couchwest went off without a hitch and it also had a strong showing in the Irish department with a special performance from Glen Hansard with Gráinne Hunt and Lorcán O'Dwyer, along with Sive, Participant and more.
