How do you follow up winning the Northern Ireland Music Prize Album of the year with your debut release? Problem Patterns’ Blouse Club stormed the 2024 awards and they have been garnering a lot of attention since, both locally, national and internationally since. Air play on Radio 6 Music, appearances at Glastonbury and high-profile support slots with The Merry Whallopers and Le Tigre have all raised the profile of Belfast’s favourite all-girl feminist punk fourpiece.
Rather than take on the dreaded “second album syndrome” the band have chosen to release a 6 track EP which they say addresses “a chaotic, cathartic exploration of burnout, boredom, and breaking through the noise of modern life” and they do this with an infectious, tongue-in-cheek style poking funs at themselves and their meteoric rise.
The collection here offers little respite, from the point at which the EP kicks off with “Song for Fi” (I clocked it at 56 frantic seconds) and the pace does not flag. A vocal duet (maybe duel) on Sad Old woman between the band’s Ciara King and Matt Korvette of the noise-meisters Pissed Jeans intrigues and adds another layer to the band’s sound. Elsewhere, “Classic Rock Has Become My Prison” takes the classic and frequently overused “guitar and chicks” rock stereotype and runs off into the distance with it while “I’m Fine and I’m Doing Great” tackles the fatigue and burn-out that comes along with increased success, although there is no hint that the band are planning to take their foot off the gas just yet.
“Bone Idle” is presented as almost a mantra, chanted until it becomes almost pure noise. The EP’s title track, tucked in at the end, is unsurprisingly a song about writing boring songs for boring people. Coming at the end of an energising and massively upbeat piece of fun it serves to remind you of the sense of humour that runs through this particular release and the band’s output as a whole
As a whole, this feels bold and experimental. It’s a hard trick to make a genre that is as long in the tooth as punk sound fresh and relevant but the four shouty queers (as the band describe themselves) from NI do this and do it brilliantly. Doing it with verve, a lot of noise and a knowing wink? Well that just takes it to another level.
