Boa Morte – Curveball – Live Review – 15/10/26
by Killian Laher

Boa Morte came to Dublin for a pre-launch gig for the forthcoming album Signal: Lost.  Pearse McGloughlin played support, joined by a violinist and a keyboardist for pleasant songs like Embers and Saga.  Last Days was rendered on keyboards and was probably the highlight before they finished with Morning Mist.

Boa Morte opened up their set with main vocalist, the shoeless Paul Ruxton, singing Mountain from their most recent album The Total Space, joined by Cormac Gahan and Bill Twomey on bass and guitars.  Not just any old guitars, but ones treated with loops, laptops and ‘tech trickery’.  They were anchored by drummer Maurice Hallisey, who played with restraint on the band’s delicate, intricate music.  The band transitioned seamlessly into By The Time, this one finishing with an almost majestic coda.  Gahan took the vocal for Dream State, which had some lovely guitar lines, while Twomey bashed away on what looked like a hollow metal oval(!)

They played songs from across all five of their albums, from Clarence White off their debut to Bird from their soon-to-be-released album Signal: Lost.  Highlights included the lovely Stones/Stone by Stone and Tired Eyes, along with newer songs like Song Is.  They finished with a blissed-out Ships Passing, during which the audience were just lost in “the moment in time”, to quote the song’s lyric.  The band are excellent and inventive musicians, and clearly love playing together.