By Kev Donnellan.
We’ve had it good the last few years in Ireland, music-wise. Of course we know this. More sensitive singer-songwriters than you can count. A thriving post-rock (or whatever you want to call it) scene. The poppier side of indie has been well catered for and electronica is building up a head of steam round these parts. But what we haven’t had is a rock band, just a rock band, who can appeal to the majority of this week’s Slane attendees as much as they do to habitual gig goers and music bloggers.
The Minutes seem to be current favourites to fill this gap. It’s difficult not to damn with faint praise when talking about a straight-up rock group. The term ‘good old-fashioned rock-n-roll’ should be taken out the back and shot. But these lads do have a straightforwardness about them that is refreshing. There are proper honest-to-goodness guitar intros, pogo-inducing refrains and escalating riffs with no fixed end-point.
Of course this can all be rendered a little ‘meat and two veg’ if a band’s influences start and end with the Britpop era. But The Minutes seem to have cast their net wide when trawling for their sound; QOTSA, The White Stripes, Iggy, BRMC, Dead Kennedys. You can hear a lot within this ‘straightforward rock’.
Their launch at the Workman’s Club has a suitably triumphant air about it. The place is packed and there’s a celebratory attitude amongst the crowd (it’s Saturday night… perhaps ‘celebratory’ can be replaced with ‘drunk’). The band rip into their set, professional without losing sight of the need for some flourishes. It helps that they have decent banter with the crowd and look to be enjoying the whole experience. Why wouldn’t they? Five years on the go and releasing their debut album now, it’s quite an achievement. Many other bands would have folded by now, or at least lost their original spark.
Highlights of the set were Black Keys and Fleetwood but there were any number of great moments. This was an proper, sweaty, exciting gig throughout and the more people listen to the album, the greater the response will be at gigs. For the moment things are looking up for The Minutes. Hopefully this is the begining and not a peak. With any luck they’ll be so big by next year that many in attendance last Saturday will have dismissed them as sellouts…
You can sample a track from the album for free, courtesy of The Minutes. Click here for more details.
Track listing:
1 Monster
2 Black Keys (Single Mix)
3 Gold
4 Fleetwood
5 Believer
6 Secret History
7 Indian Wings
8 Black and Blue (A Letter)
9 Heartbreaker
10 Guilt Quilt
11 I.M.T.O.D
12 Monsters
