Every month sees more and more great Irish music released to the world. Aaron Cunningham and Will Mac Aoidh select some of our favourite releases of last month, including cover artist Thumper. All found in our rotating playlist.
Thumper – The Drip
Dublin heavyweights Thumper are back at last! Following on from 2022’s Delusion of Grandeur, The Drip is a bold and raucous homecoming track. Combining the crunchy, off the-wall guitar riffs with distorted, pop-styled vocals is so much fun, but there’s never anything to fear from a band like Thumper – you really can set your watch to the quality of their tracks. WMA
Pebbledash – Asha’s Waltz
Cork’s Pebbledash continue a productive 2025 with new single ‘Asha’s Waltz’, just a few months on from a debut EP. The track dives further into atmospherics and a melding of folk with shoegaze sensibilities as vocals and softly strummed acoustics emerge from the mist. AC
NewDad – Entertainer
Doing Galway proud! NewDad’s Entertainer is a moody, bouncy track – tons of fun but with a dark edge, the likes of which we haven’t seen since NewDad’s Madra album. The entirety of Safe, their new EP, is top-shelf goodness & well worth a listen if you need a new band to totally consume your life – I just can’t get enough of their sound. WMA
Morgana – Nothing Kills A Party Like a Song
Fans of Saint Sister will be very familiar with Morgana, the songwriting force behind the band. I was a huge Saint Sister fan way back when I started college, so to see Morgana continuing on to release three stunning singles in the last year warms my heart from the bottom up. Nothing Kills A Party Like A Song is a gorgeous slow-dance of a tune with spacious instrumentation that makes the gorgeous vocals sparkle. I’m so, so excited to see more and more from Morgana in the next while. WMA
For Those I Love – Of the Sorrows
Five years since his emergence with the defining ‘I Have A Love’ and four years since his last release, For Those I Love’s David Balfe is back. ‘Of The Sorrows’ carries Balfe’s emotional weight into the economic realities of living in Dublin, and the turmoil of leaving. His debut was a personal release about the passing of a close friend, but ‘Of The Sorrows’ dispels many doubts about Balfe capturing more fire in the bottle. AC
Famille Rose & Banríon – Changing
This one caught me by surprise, as Paddy Ormond (Lord Ormond, Postcard Versions & more) joins with Banríon for new track ‘Changing’. There’s both a delicateness and melancholy to the vocals that sits atop the smart indie production. AC
Last Apollo – Dandelion
Intriguing from start to finish, ‘Dandelion’ is the latest release from London based Last Apollo. The varied instrumentation lends itself to a dreamlike atmosphere on unsteady footing, while the theatrical vocals soar above. A rare release from the genre mixing songwriter. AC
Rob de Boer – So Hard to Forget
Irish-Dutch artist Rob de Boer embraces the soulful on his laid back debut album Man To You. Taken from that album is ‘So Hard to Forget’ that captures that smoothness through a wonderful medley of instruments that sound simultaneously throwback and fresh. AC
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