Album review: Lankum
Thu, Nov 02, 2017
I RARELY get excited about Irish folk/trad albums, given most are either of the sickly slick super produced variety or else have that purist reductionism which renders trad as a kind of 'living dead' form where jibes that 'it all sounds the same' are not without foundation.
Read more ...What Lenin has to teach us
Thu, Nov 02, 2017
LENIN FOR Today is neither a historical study nor a biography but an attempt by long time Socialist Workers Party member – and leading light in People Before Profit – John Molyneaux to make a case for Lenin’s ideas and organisational methods in the here and now.
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Vodafone Comedy Carnival Galway 2017
Tue, Oct 31, 2017
FROM ONE end of the city centre to the other, it was impossible to escape the Vodafone Comedy Carnival over the last week and especially during the Bank Holiday Weekend - and in truth, why would you want to? The best shows in town were all here.
Read more ...Cinema review: Happy Death Day
Mon, Oct 23, 2017
HAPPY DEATH Day is billed as Scream meets Groundhog Day, which is a great idea. The Groundhog Day motif worked really well in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow and in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It is a concept that lends itself well to a slasher movie.
Read more ...Album review: Slow Place Like Home
Thu, Oct 19, 2017
THE SECOND album from Donegal vocalist, composer, and producer SPLH - aka Keith Mannion - contains what may be a first, or at least a rarity, in electronic music - the use of a waltz rhythm.
Read more ...Cinema review: The Snowman
Mon, Oct 16, 2017
WITH 2008's Let The Right One In, director Tomas Alfredson made one of the best film I have ever seen - a hauntingly powerful vampire film which has since been remade for an American audience and turned into a stage play.
Read more ...Album review: Liam Gallagher
Thu, Oct 12, 2017
THE CLUE is in the title. This is not about reinvention ("I didn’t want to be reinventing anything or going off on a space jazz odyssey," Liam has said.) It's about a return to terra firma after Oasis's end and Beady Eye's failure.
Read more ...Book review: Poets unblinking in the face of breast cancer
Thu, Oct 12, 2017
IF YOU are a woman, or have a mother, wife, girlfriend, sister, or daughter, the poems included in this new anthology, Bosom Pals: Eight Poets Share Their Experience of Breast Cancer could, some day, perhaps even today, prove invaluable.
Read more ...Cinema Review: Blade Runner 2049
Mon, Oct 09, 2017
BLADE RUNNER 2049 is the sequel to 1982 classic Blade Runner. The 2049 is the year the sequel is set. So, don't worry, you haven’t missed Blade Runner the other 2047 sequels. Am I the first person to make that joke? Probably.
Read more ...Album review: Warfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmares
Thu, Oct 05, 2017
WARFARING STRANGERS: The Darkscorch Canticles, released in 2013, was a treasure trove of underground Black Sabbath-influenced US metal from the early 1970s by an array of short lived, yet fascinating, bands.
Read more ...Tá scéal san mBéaloideas
Thu, Oct 05, 2017
THE BLURB on the back of City of Streams - Galway Folklore and Folk life in the 1930s by Caitrîona Hastings, published by the History Press is clear and concise:
Read more ...Theatre review: King of the Castle (Druid Theatre Company)
Wed, Oct 04, 2017
THOUGH WIDELY acknowledged as one of our foremost writers, Eugene McCabe is also, paradoxically, somewhat unsung. This may be explained by his output being less than prolific, with lengthy gaps where he focused on tending his farm, and that he wrote across different media – stage, television and fiction.
Read more ...Album review: Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
Thu, Sep 28, 2017
THE LONDON siblings' previous album, Third, found them branching out, for an eclectic, self composed set, encompassing rock'n'roll, soul, funk, pop, blues, and ska. Superscope scales back the diversity to concentrate more on rock'n'roll and blues.
Read more ...Bowie, Berlin, and the Kosmische Musik
Tue, Sep 26, 2017
AFTER ZIGGY Stardust, The Gouster soul boy, and The Thin White Duke, where could Bowie possibly go next? The answer lay, not so much in the mask of a character, rather it lay in a location, one where Bowie could feel free to be, perhaps, a little more himself.
Read more ...Album review: Alvvays
Thu, Sep 14, 2017
ALVVAYS DEBUT album was dominated, indeed overshadowed, by one song - 'Archie, Marry Me' - an inspired depiction of young love, defiance, and ennui. Backed by a grandstanding chorus and killer middle eight, it was definitive indiepop par excellence.
Read more ...Artistic delights for the eye
Tue, Sep 12, 2017
A WONDERFUL transatlantic group exhibition is currently running in the Salmon Weir gallery at Corrib Castle, Waterside – a building that has been superbly refurbished and designed by architects Patrick McCabe and Sarah Kelly, and offers stunning views over the Corrib and weir.
Read more ...Album review: Neil Young
Thu, Sep 07, 2017
SINCE SHAKEY opened up his archives, a treasure trove of magnificent, mostly live, albums, have been flowing out to us grateful fans over the past decade. The latest in this series is an unreleased studio work - Hitchhiker.
Read more ...The experiences of the Irish in Occupied France
Thu, Sep 07, 2017
IF EVER evidence was needed to give credence to the cliché that there is more to a book than just words on the page, then The Irish in Wartime France 1939-1945, by Isadore Ryan, is a prime example of a book that talks to you before you pick it up. It exudes an intriguing atmosphere.
Read more ...Stories that confront, not console
Thu, Sep 07, 2017
I HAVE, what some of the refined types who rely on the deluxe end of the social welfare system that is Áosdána, would consider a nasty confession to make: though June Caldwell is only now publishing her first book of stories, she has long been my one of my favourite Irish writers.
Read more ...'I had to write this book'
Thu, Aug 31, 2017
Prize-winning author Paul Lynch will discuss his new novel Grace — an epic tale about a young girl in famine-era Ireland — in a public conversation with Alan McMonagle at The Black Gate Cultural Centre next Thursday, September 7.
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