“Dance is a little insanity that does us all good” – Edward Derby
In 2013 Gilla Band (then known as Girl Band) released an incendiary cover version of techno producer Blawan’s track “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” highlighting a love affair the alt/post/noise/punk (delete as you see fit) group had with electronica. What was so exhilarating about this version was that it wasn’t a lazy swipe at popularity by getting a well-known producer to slap a four/four beat under their already linear structured, indie track. What it was, was a new language being written and a new way of taking guitar music forward. Over the band’s consistently excellent previous three albums they have retained that exploratory spirit and have never shied away from continuing to dip into the various forms of dance music, albeit forms that they could corrupt and mould into their own. Debut album Holding Hands With Jamie contained the warped waltz of ‘Baloo’ whilst follow up The Talkies had the Glam-dance stomp of ‘Shoulderblades’. The band’s last album Most Normal had on it the driving two-step of ‘Backwash’ which was the closest Gilla Band had come to reimagining the style they had announced on their Blawan cover. Now the band are back with Pugnello which is the band’s most obvious step into dance culture and their most experimental album to date.
Named after a “haunted font” from a horror novel by lead singer Dara Kiely’s uncle, Pugnello is an album that exists in the clashes between nostalgia and progression and lyrically an album that faces head on into the difficult themes of grief and mental illness. This is a sonically denser album than the band have made previously, making it even richer sounding than its predecessor Most Normal which, listening back now, sounds like a signpost of where Gilla Band were heading, only they have gone further than you might have anticipated.
Making a statement was the first taste we had of the album, single ‘Placeholder’. Here was a mid-tempo techno stomp absolutely slathered in fuzz, scratches and distortion. At the halfway point we lose the beat and instead Gilla Band leave us wandering in the pure ambience of noise and confusion as Kiely “analyzes my mental quirks” with lyrics about his tendency to use nostalgia as an escape. Power Rangers and Big Brother rub shoulders with Coldplay and Harold Lloyd, all disparate elements which feel so conjoined when referenced by Kiely in his surrealistic style.
Before we get to ‘Placeholder’, Pugnello launches us head first into the Gilla Band vortex with ‘The Angelus’ which is an absolute manic interpretation of drum and bass featuring multi-layered snare drums, a street-preacher vocal delivery, and a sheer cacophony of feedback and guitar tones. I feel it is important to note here that when it comes to the music of Gilla Band it is not advised to look into what is making what noise and to assume you know the musician behind it. Guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner have managed to not only continue to push the music into ever expanding universes, they have also managed to sound like themselves. Being able to balance a thirst for experimentation yet still containing a uniquely-themselves sound is not an easy feat.
After ‘Placeholder’, the album takes us deeper with the electro lurch of ‘Alogia’, an almost Fuck Buttons-like steady paced acid ramble that Kiely uses to write about the Schizophrenia diagnosis that he received during the making of the album (‘alogia’ being a “poverty of speech linked to mental health health conditions”). Addressing his mental health issues isn’t new terrain for Kiely, as he was searingly honest on Most Normal’s closing track ‘Post Ryan’ but somehow on this song, and throughout the album, his words feel even more exposed and reflective. This is particularly effective on the next two songs, ‘Three Hands Clapping’ and ‘Jacobsons’ are both songs that deal with the subject of grief. The former is a song whirlpool spin through clicks,clacks and steamtrain feedback and which is about the grief we feel when friends grow up and move on, leaving you the only one left behind (Kiely has also now moved from the band’s hometown of Dublin). Kiely describes this wonderfully as like a place where it is “season four of a tv show in which a lot of the characters have gone and I’m not up to date with it”. Then there is a more acute grief present in ‘Jacobsons’, a song where Kiely tries to define what it is like for him living with grief (Kiely’s estranged father passed away in between this album and its predecessor). ‘Jacobsons’ is one of the most vulnerable that Kiely has been on record yet he always manages to maintain that balance between the profound and the absurd, with lyrics often being wonderfully weird, funny, and searingly honest. The music matches the lyrical content as it feels like a dancefloor, propulsive dance beast but one that has had its heart hollowed out so it is more shell-like than fully fleshed.
‘The Megazord’ returns us into a sonic slouch march, surrounded by buzz and static whilst Kiely returns to the nostalgia of Power Rangers whilst ‘Computer Sadness’ bops along as a shoulder shuffle featuring Kiely’s vocals, layered and echoing like there are multitudes of him. This, apparently, was an attempt at a love song, however not much romance comes through the final piece. This is a love song like Coil would write a love song, all twisted and multi-faceted.
The album then turns into some darker territory with the oppressive rhythms and metallic guitars of ‘Giraffe’. If you were to deeply investigate the musical DNA on display here you could find a whiff of The Stooges and a hint of The Fall as it loops over and over, before we are yanked by the collar back into the basement of a dank techno club where the ceilings drip and the corners contain secrets. According to Kiely, the first few sections represent what it is like in his headspace and “feeling unloved” however the final section finds the singer talking about his mother and how “that amount of love is difficult for me to accept but it is a beautiful thing to have in life.”
Penultimate song, ’Crisp Pop’, finds Kiely returning to the subject of food (which he has leant on throughout the band’s career) and is a humorous take on a pub conversation, although this one seems to take place in some kind of purgatory where Aphex Twin is on the decks and Throbbing Gristle are eyeballing us in the corner. The song canters along with an almost jaunty element yet it remains an unsettling and weirdly oppressive piece of music. I’m not sure how many would stay around here for a conversation about bands and crisps if I am being honest.
Pugnello closes with ‘At The Gallop’ which continues in the vein of Most Normal’s closer Post Ryan in the fact that the band decide to close the album on a highly emotive note. Taking inspiration from Neil Young’s “Trans” album, ‘At The Gallop’ finds Kiely utilizing vocal distortion so that it is unrecognizable and then inhabiting the character of his father, imagining him talking from..somewhere else. Fittingly, the music that surrounds Kiely is some of the most innovative and richest on the whole album. The song saunters with occasional brief moments of harsh carnage, conflicting sounds for conflicting words. There is no let up throughout this entire piece and it might be the most powerful song the band have ever created, not only because of the impact of the music itself but because of the lyrics which include “why do you run from me?”, “don’t miss me, don’t find me”, “make it stop/make it numb”, “I’m so grateful that you’re so hateful”, and the final line of the whole album “your dad is dead”.
Let’s set the record straight here. Gilla Band have been, from their very first recordings, one of the most singular, innovative and influential bands to come out of Dublin. Not only via their albums, but also via their incendiary live shows. Pugnello is not about to stop that trajectory. Here we have an album infected with an insatiable appetite for mining new pathways both musically and lyrically. It can often be a difficult and harrowing listen yet this is exactly as it should be for the themes it is addressing. Yet amongst all of this cacophony and emotional exposure, Gilla Band have managed to retain their sense of humour and individual identity. You KNOW that this is a Gilla Band album yet it manages to sound like yet another left turn for the band. One day, the masses will look back at Gilla Band and realise just how culturally important they are. They are The Fall for those born in the 2000s. Their influence will continue to permeate through the artistic endeavors of those willing to push their own, and societies boundaries. It is hard to single out this album as a highlight, because the entire catalogue of Gilla Band needs investigating, however in terms of sheer musical inventiveness, lyrical development, and an ever-increasing desire to push on through to the other side, Pugnello might prove to be the bands defining statement……until the next one anyway.
The album is released on 25th September.
All words by Simon Tucker
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