Entertainment

Noise Annoys: Dublin's Galants find Heaven

<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Galants, take inspiration from&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">seminal guitar bands including&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Husker Du&nbsp;</span>
Galants, take inspiration from seminal guitar bands including Husker Du  Galants, take inspiration from seminal guitar bands including Husker Du 

LONGTIME followers of Noise Annoys (all three of them) will no doubt remember the many column inches it once devoted to fabulous Dungannon/Coalisland alt-rocksters/rockstars Yakuza.

Sadly, the quartet called it a day around five years ago and it's been a while since we heard anything new from Davey and Philly (who went on to progressive noiseniks Mudbitch), Rony (still a member of Cashier No 9) or Jamesy, the latter being the band's resident drummer/surgeon extraordinaire.

However, the Jamesy has now broken his musical silence and is back making loud, rhythmic banging and/or crashing noises with Dublin indie trio Galants.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Lou Barlow, this lot's electric white boy blues takes inspiration from Husker Du, plus some deft sonic cribbage from vintage Teenage Fanclub and Yo La Tengo besides.

They make a fine fist of it too on new single This Is Heaven, which crackles with thick, Bob Mould-y guitars varnished in a coat of spangly shoegaze shimmer.

It's the band's second single, following on from the earlier debut Howling/Silver which was released last year and is still available for your listening and downloading pleasure alongside the newie at Galants.bandcamp.com.

Although pre-dating Jamesy's arrival on the stool, this pair of tunes are high quality time capsules containing concentrated doses of The Sound of Summer '91 – specifically the latter song, a pedal-hopping sprawl that sounds so much like recently reformed Oxford shoegazers RIDE that they even named it after one of their early numbers.

The rumbling bass and churning guitars of Howling's thrashy noisepop is more Valentines (pre-Loveless) in its outlook, yet somehow dreamier than the jagged clang and bang of Mr Shields and co.

Anyway, those musical references should give you a fair idea whether you'll like the cut of Galants' jib: if you're firmly in the 'hell yeah' camp, then grab This Is Heaven for a measly €1 and the other two tunes as free downloads and stay tuned for another couple of singles coming down the pipe later this summer.

The band are also playing out next month down south, with an August 2 date at The Workingman's Club in their hometown followed by a live engagement in Cork on August 8 at Cyprus Avenue.

News of any northern incursions as and when I hear about them.

Onwards to those Wood Burning Savages, the Derry combo who are preparing to unleash their new single as you read these very words: Premier League will be unveiled on July 20, almost a whole month before the new football season kicks off.

However, as singer Paul is quick to inform us, he actually "don't care about the Premier League," nor has he strong feelings about "oligarch greed", "the words of Marc Anthony", "stocks and shares" or indeed "the warmonger Blair".

No, Paul just wants to "live a life for me, try it out on the MTV, a white picket fence for all to see for me and my nuclear family", a pitch that could well find itself commissioned by the ailing former music channel as part of its non-stop 'reality' barrage alongside Teen Mom XXII and series 10 of Catfish: The TV Show.

Such opinions are delivered in urgent indie pop fashion via fast Wedding Present-style strumming propelled by a driving, groovy bassline and disco-friendly drums.

The quartet even slip in a slinky My Sharona rip-off riff into the tune, which develops increasingly epic aspirations as it works up a head of steam but ultimately falls some way short of achieving total sonic dominance.

Premier League feels a little like a poor man's We Didn't Start The Fire or maybe even Beds Are Burning, meaning that, in footballing terms, it's more Tottenham than Chelsea.

Still, as a Villa man, such Europa League-worthy form is certainly nothing for me to get sniffy about.

Premier League will be available online from July 20 via Thewoodburningsavages.bandcamp.com and the Savages will be launching it this day week with a blue bag gig at The Loft, 99 North Street, Belfast.

Before that, they're are also in action tomorrow at the Swell Festival in Donegal, so if you're taking flight to the north west over the weekend, consider yourself advised.