Album of the Week – 01/11/24

How long have you waited for a new album by The Cure? If you guessed 16 years, you’d be right as 4:13 Dream was released all the way back in 2008.  Their new album Songs of a Lost World is released today and it’s pretty damn good!

There are also albums from Peter Perrett (of The Only Ones called The Cleansing) and POWERFLO (which features members of Cypress Hill, Biohazard, and Fear Factory) called Gorilla Warfare.

For our Album of the Week, we couldn’t ignore Bray’s finest, with the return of Fionn Regan! Apologies to the Kings of Goth.

Album of the Week – Fionn Regan – O Avalanche

“I feel like the album has got quite a lot of bottled-summer energy running through it,” says Regan. It took him two or three albums’ worth of material to find the songs that felt simpatico – the ones that “started to hang out together and fought their way to becoming the album”. Capturing the mood, Regan wrote the record while staying in Mallorca, a place he describes as his “true north”: “There’s a sense of an artistic energy there, where you step back a little from the main drag of bigger cities. You’re sat there in the mountains looking towards the cities, rather than the other way. There’s a kind of focus, a feeling that you’re tuned in to something.”

Regan has fine-tuned a sensibility of his own since the acoustic poetry of his debut album, 2006’s Mercury-shortlisted The End of History. Since then, he has travelled between band-based detours and the gleaming likes of 2011’s 100 Acres of Sycamore, whose worry-worn beauty “Dogwood Blossom” drew new audiences when it found kindred spirits in two TV shows, romantic lockdown hit Normal People and Shane Meadows’s This Is England 86. Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy featured in the video for 2017’s “The Meeting Of The Waters” while elsewhere Regan has been nominated for Choice, Meteor Ireland and Shortlist awards, sampled by Bon Iver, photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair and made an honorary member of the Trinity College Literary Society. “I feel really lucky in the sense that the music I make has its own climate or landscape,” says Regan.

Co-produced with Ian Grimble, O Avalanche steers Regan’s off-the-main-drag feel for climate and landscape towards another creative peak, forging a record to lose yourself in. “It’s like you’re looking into this world where there’s a depth of field, it’s summer, and you’re floating into and out of it,” he says of the album. “The songs can come together in the moment, so it’s not a conscious thing, but when I listen to the record it feels like there’s an eternal optimism about it – a kind of upward-feeling energy.” With the gentlest of touches, O Avalanche will sweep you off your feet.

Albums of Note:

— The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

— Drive-By Truckers – American Band – Deluxe

— Peter Perrett (of The Only Ones) – The Cleansing

— POWERFLO (feat. members of Cypress Hill, Biohazard, and Fear Factory) – Gorilla Warfare

— Richard Swift – 4 Hits & A Miss

— Thus Love – All Pleasure

Albums Released on November 1st:

— Alice Costelloe – When It’s Time EP

— Authority Zero – Thirty Years: Speaking to the Youth EP

— Autre Ne Veut – Love, Guess Who??

— BABYMONSTER – DRIP

— Beardfish – Songs For Beating Hearts

— BODEGA – Brand on the Run (Deluxe Edition)

— Braxton Cook – My Everything EP

— Carpenters – Christmas Once More

— Carpet – Fruit EP

— Charlie Kaplan – Eternal Repeater

— Chase Atlantic – Lost in Heaven

— Contour – Take Off from Mercy

— The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

— David Nail – A Campfire Christmas

— Dean Martin – Greatest Hits (Vinyl Release)

— Drive-By Truckers – American Band – Deluxe

— Elvis Costello – King of America & Other Realms

— Fionn Regan – O Avalanche

— The Fleshtones – It’s Getting Late (…and More Songs About Werewolves)

— Flower Face – Girl Prometheus

— hackedepicciotto – The Best of hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli)

— Hayla – Dusk

— Henrik Appel – Shadows

— .idk – BRAVADO INTiMO

— Illiterate Light – Arches

— Ivy – Long Distance (Vinyl Reissue)

— Jacquees – Baby Making

— Jennifer Castle – Camelot

— Jeremie Albino – Our Time in the Sun

— Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler —brent iii

— Jimmy Fallon – Holiday Seasoning

— Johnny Delaware (of SUSTO) – Para Llevar

— Katrina Ford – H.E.A.R.T.

— Laeland – MESSMORE EP

— Leaving Time – Angel in the Sand

— Lil Zay Osama – The Streets Calling My Name, Pt. 2

— Loe Shimmy – Nardy World

— Loose Cattle – Someone’s Monster

— Low Cut Connie – Connie Live

— Marcus Drake – Save Point 1

— Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break The Oath (Vinyl Reissue)

— Military Genius – Scarred For Life

— Mount Eerie – Night Palace

— NACHTMYSTIUM – Bight Privilege

— Nitefire – Ameripop! EP

— Olivia O (of Lowertown) – No Bones, Sickly Sweet

— OMBIIGIZI – SHAME

— Paul Kelly – Forever Longing Still

— Peter Perrett (of The Only Ones) – The Cleansing

— Planes Mistaken For Stars – Do You Still Love Me?

— POWERFLO (feat. members of Cypress Hill, Biohazard, and Fear Factory) – Gorilla Warfare

— Red Ribbon – Red Ribbon

— Richard Swift – 4 Hits & A Miss

— Royal Trux – Hands of Glory (Vinyl Reissue)

— Royal Trux – Untitled (Vinyl Reissue)

— RUSH – The Albums: 1989-1996

— Sam Barber – Restless Mind

— Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans P. Kjorstad – Dream Trio

— Sarah Blasko – I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain

— Sarah Neufeld / Richard Reed Parry / Rebecca Foon – First Sounds

— Scott Hedrick (of Skeletonwitch) – Devotional Drift Vol. 1

— Slower – Rage and Ruin

— Thirdface – Ministerial Cafeteria

— Thus Love – All Pleasure

— Tomin – A Willed and Conscious Balance

— Tribulation – Sub Rosa in Æternum

— Tusks – Gold For Synth And String EP

— urika’s bedroom – Big Smile, Black Mire

— Usher – Confessions (20th Anniversary Edition)

— Volume – Joy of Navigation

— Warren Haynes – Million Voices Whisper

— Weezer – Weezer (The Blue Album) 30th Anniversary Edition

— Westside Gunn – Still Praying

— Willie Nelson – Last Leaf on the Tree