The Irish post-punk group’s second album takes a more measured approach to expressing their socio-political fury.
There’s a lot to be pissed off about right now. And if you’re an up and coming band from Ireland, you’re in a pretty well placed arena to voice those frustrations in the form of highly charged post-punk. For Dublin based Gurriers, then being part of the cohort of post pandemic breakout Irish groups like Gilla Band, Sprints, and of course, Fontaines DC, comes with its own airtight formula which is reaching a commercially marketable peak. Packaging up digital age apathy, political frustrations and postmodern social alienation seems to be a contemporary success formula worth pursuing.
This wouldn’t be to say that Gurriers don’t have something worthwhile to shout about. Their 2024 debut Come and See was an exciting debut that showcased that familiar alluring blur of noise rock, shoegaze and dance punk. And of course, like their peers, they were quickly gaining a reputation as a formidable live act. One of the great pulls of these bands is the live experience; a frenzied experience which serves as an outlet to those bottled frustrations which so many of the young generation are riddled with. Combined with the timing of a post-pandemic new world, it became a sort of urban catharsis as punk and rave collided head on in a gear-fuelled unholy union.
Gurriers are unquestionably removed from that entirely unserious realm of genre eclecticism masquerading as inane protest music; they do have a valid point to make. If their debut album had been all about cramming as much of their existential anxieties and real world terrors into an LP, then Nobody’s Coming To Save You looks to zoom out from a musical arrangement POV. There was such a surplus of ideas seeping out of their debut, that it left the music feeling (maybe intentionally) claustrophobic.
Enlisting the support of IDLES guitarist and producer Mark Bowen, the result is a more patient, structurally restrained effort wherein the visceral immediacy is inevitably sacrificed. The influence of the Bristol post-punk high flyers is clearest on the album’s first half, which interestingly feels like its weaker side. In adopting a more cohesive production formula, the result is an effective, but overly measured run of tracks. Kicking things off is a less than gripping title track which has all the shoutiness without the substance, before second track Party Lines shuffles about with that disco-ridged beat that we’ve heard before in post-punk ambitious crossover tracks (yet it doesn’t land so well here). Today Is Not Enough performs a similar trick; it’s effective enough, but we’ve heard it done better by the same group of lads.
On the album’s second half, the post-punk playbook appears to get figuratively defenestrated. On Drones, a trip-hop beat eventually folds into an elongated punk outro of earned vociferation. Waiting for Fisher is a proper attention grabbing track of crank-wave fury, before album closer Crybaby hints at a more vulnerable and melodic side to their usual brand of distorted ire. These more experimental tracks translate as unquestionably more interesting, as Gurriers look beyond their sophomore album to what might come next.
Which brings us back to the central question: once the protest element becomes inextricably attached to a genre’s formulaic structure, is its potency diluted? This wouldn’t be to suggest that the lyrical content is in any way contrived, but it seems to be straddling the borders of lacking in nuanced perspective, given the tidal wave of post-punk imitation which exists presently. Personal themes are personal for good reason, but cutting through the post-punk disaffection is becoming an increasingly tricky challenge. For now it holds together, but Gurriers seem to hint as if they know all too well that flipping the formula is not only sensible, but necessary.
