written by Chris Familton

Magnetic Heads opened the evening with some wonderfully constructed songs. The influence of Talking Heads hovers over the group at times, not just in aspects of their sound but also in the tone of Des Miller’s voice when he hits the higher notes. When he stays low he has a kindred spirit in Jack Ladder and Bryan Ferry. They’ve developed a tasty sound that avoids the current indie trends and allows some nice space and a relaxed dynamic to their song structures.

Guineafowl on the other hand are a much more urgent and polished beast. They generated an impressively big sound on the Gaelic stage and delivered a fine batch of stirring indie anthems. British Sea Power came to mind with the surging aspect of their sound, as did Talking Heads (again) when they broke the music into more intricate batches, dialing up the quirk factor. Live Guineafowl are way more rocking and guitar-based than their recordings to date – if they can bridge that gap between the charm of home recordings and a live band they’ll carve out a nice space for themselves.

Belles Will Ring were celebrating the release of their new single Come North With Me Baby, Wow and they were unfortunately handicapped by a malfunctioning trumpet when it came time to play the song though they recovered well with vocal imitations replacing the horn. Elsewhere they wove some magical moments out of their wistful pop rock songs. The 60s bass grooves and the chiming twin guitars of Aiden Roberts and Liam Judson are the central musical figures in Belles Will Ring and they showed why they are getting deserved attention with their subtle blend of americana, pop and the lighter side of psych rock.

It was when they got a little darker on songs like Come To The Village they were at their most appealing though. The music was all that more hypnotic and mysterious and steered well clear of falling into predictable strum territory. Their melodies are starting to sound more unique with each new release and live you can really hear the development of the band. Now all they need to do is release that album that beckons so their audience can really get their heads inside the songs.

this review first appeared in Drum Media