NewDad
Three Music Stage
★★★★☆
NewDad make little secret of their debt to the godfathers of alternative rock, and their first Electric Picnic set brims with references to Pixies, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. They even throw in a Cure cover for good measure.
But though the influences are familiar the Galway band alchemise them into a sound also fresh and unique – the soundtrack of the student disco overlaid with the drizzle and wry angst of the west of Ireland.
At a festival bright with pop moments, their indie foreboding feels like a refuge from a harsh and uncaring world – a harsh, uncaring world in a bucket hat as Gerry Cinnamon’s headliner fast approaches. It may also feel familiar to anyone who saw them at All Together Now a fortnight ago.
But NewDad push through such distractions to deliver a gorgeous performance – heavy and earnest and strip-lit with dense, smoggy riffing. The music orbits the voice of frontwoman (and guitarist) Julie Dawson. Both sugary and sharp, her coo cuts through the gloom of their opener, Drown, and battles Kim Deal-style surging bass on Sickly Sweet.
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A tilt at The Cure’s Just Like Heaven amps up the hellish pain beneath Robert Smith’s Hallmark card lyrics. Next, Spring rushes the barricades with a sprightly melody.
NewDad’s story has been full of twists since they formed in Leaving Cert class at Coláiste Iognáid in Galway. They’ve been heralded by the NME and were spotlit by the BBC’s recent Glastonbury coverage. More unexpectedly, Joshua Gordon’s cover art for their debut album, Madra, has gone viral in China, where its image of a porcelain doll with a smashed face has been co-opted into thousands of memes and mixes.
They finish with the title track from the LP, a dreamy chugger that begins with Dawson asking the crowd to honour the title by barking in unison. The tent howls, the guitar kicks in and, to paraphrase The Cure, a little bit of indie heaven comes to Stradbally.
