Since the release of their debut single five years ago, Dublin five-piece Gurriers have been a staple within the Irish music scene. Their blend of noise-rock and post-punk has travelled much further than its origins, bagging them huge support slots across the globe, often with Irish peers such as Inhaler and Kneecap. The bite of the latter’s lyricism is mirrored in Gurriers’ sound, but drummer Pierce O’Callaghan and guitarist Ben O’Neill are, it turns out, humorous and easy to talk to, slipping into natural conversation with one another and getting excited when they talk about their new material.
This month, Gurriers are due to release their second album Nobody’s Coming To Save You. Far from a sophomore slump, the band knew exactly how to shift their sound naturally between their first and second albums. “When we went into writing this album it was definitely a different kind of vibe”, O’Neill says. O’Callaghan says that “there were also moments where it was like starting to learn how to write again because we’d gone a long time without actively writing new music. Getting back into the flow of it takes a while: it’s not like a tap, you can’t just turn it on and suddenly get good new music”.
“You have to get rid of a lot of shit to get to a point where you’re all on the same page when it comes to writing. I think it took a while to get there, but once we were in the flow of it, it was great. We left a couple of tracks, I think two or three, that were 80% or 90% written, to be finished in the studio. I thought that was really cool because then we got the benefit of bouncing ideas off producers and engineers, and we had never really written collaboratively with anyone outside of the group before”.
Nobody’s Coming To Save You was partially produced by IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen, who recently contributed to Florence + the Machine’s latest album Everybody Scream. They met at a Kneecap show Gurriers were opening for, and with Bowen on board shortly after it might be assumed that the resulting record would repeat the formula of Come and See, the band’s debut.
Come and See is imbued with anger all the way through, being carried by ferocious guitar riffs and pounding drum lines. On the other hand, Nobody’s Coming To Save You pulls as much from IDLES’ angular rage as it does Geese‘s ability to mediate between intensity and sensitivity, featuring moments of tenderness despite of its solipsistic title. These moments are best exemplified by ‘Pins’, which begins with a gentle guitar riff and vulnerable, contemplative lyricism before being boosted by an effortlessly catchy chorus as vocalist Dan Hoff sings “I want it, I need it, your love is the meaning, I want it, I need it, your love is everything”. It’s a declaration of devotion that does reach a carnal sense of dependency, but when placed beside the pessimism of Gurriers’ debut, it becomes touching.
When asked whether this tenderness was a deliberate choice, O’Neill says that it wasn’t intentional, but “a more mature approach” to songwriting was. O’Callaghan says that Bowen’s approach worked for the band because Gurriers’ and IDLES’ setups aren’t worlds apart: they’re both five-pieces making loud guitar music, and they too offer moments of warmth amongst the chaos.
One of the first songs Gurriers wrote for this album was its title track, which is darker in sound and thematic material than ‘Pins’ but does play host to a gentle bridge. The pair say that Hoff had discussed attempting to turn to introspection in his lyrics, which had an effect on how they themselves thought as instrumentalists. But they assure that most of the album was about following creative rabbit holes, consciously or unconsciously. “I think that as we were writing this album, we wanted to expand on our sound, but I don’t think you can ever chase the idea of writing a specific type of song because then you end up cutting off a lot of potential influences or ideas. You end up narrowing the focus too much and writing something very contrived, which is not something we want to do. I’d like to think we’re whatever the opposite of contrived is”, O’Callaghan asserts.
“I’d like to think we’re whatever the opposite of contrived is”
“The first album is definitely quite chaotic in some senses, especially with the way the guitars are arranged to feed off the drums. This one definitely feels like there’s more space for everything, more space for the song to breathe. You can have those moments where it does get a bit more chaotic, but if everything’s heavy the whole time, then nothing’s heavy”.
The record’s twists and turns will be on display at the band’s upcoming headline show at New Century Hall, but the five-piece are not strangers to Manchester: most of them live there. “We’ve all just moved here”, O’Callaghan says. “Hoff is still in Dublin for a while, but the rest of us have been here for three weeks now. It’s a great city, everyone’s so chatty and the way people approach things over here is quite refreshing”. “I live a thirty-minute walk away from town, whereas back in Ireland I was a forty minute drive from the shops”, O’Neill laughs.
The band are also no strangers to a Manchester stage, even if their last appearance in the city was over a year ago at Projekts Skatepark. “I felt like I was doing the soundtrack for a Tony Hawk game!”, O’Neill says about the show. Another time, they were booked to open for fellow Irish band Inhaler, but the date was rescheduled at the last minute, so they ended up “DJing at a random pub in town”. Once it had been rescheduled, the support slot took place at O2 Apollo, in front of a 3500-strong crowd.
Their rise began back in Ireland, where the band have firmly established themselves amongst the best of the Irish music scene. “It’s just great to see so many great bands coming to the fore”, O’Neill says, “There’s a huge swathe of different genres at the moment too, it makes you proud to be from home”. “When I chat to older musicians in Ireland in their forties and fifties”, O’Callaghan says, “I find that the scene in the 2000s was very cutthroat. I think an aspect of that is why not as many bands got beyond the idea of only being able to tour in the UK and Ireland. I think now, so many Irish bands have broken out of that and are doing well across the world”.
One question remained to finish off the interview: the band’s Instagram account only follows three people, one being Melanie C. The reason why: Mel C is into Irish noise-rock. “She gave us a shout out on the round table on BBC Radio 6 Music, she gave us a ten out of ten. She’s a legend, I love the fucking Spice Girls”, O’Callaghan says.
The title track of Gurriers’ upcoming album began as a response to a review accusing them of “saying so many political things but having no answers”. The album as a whole continues this response: Gurriers might not be able to solve Earth’s problems, but they’re very much aware of that. Instead of “answers”, they provide an outlet for the uncertainty and frustration of the modern world, whether that be through politically-charged songs or moments of escapist tenderness.
