Dublin trio Really Good Time have announced their debut album Affirmations, out August 7th, and shared new single ‘Do It’ alongside a music video directed by Sophie O’Donovan. Listen and watch below.
On ‘Do It’ , motorik guitar riffs coil over a rhythm section locked into near-mechanical relentlessness, building tension that has only one possible outcome. Lyrically it’s a grimly satirical account of “grinding through Irish suburbia in the teeth of a housing and financial crisis”- doing everything you were told to do and watching the goalposts move anyway. Your dating app is Daft.ie. The bank told you to move back in with your da. The absurdity of it.
Frontman Wastefellow on the track: “‘Do It’ is a song about impossible tasks. It’s about trying to do everything you have been told to do in life, and never achieving what was promised. The goalposts have shifted, no, that isn’t how you do it. Are you angry? Are you ashamed? Go and roll that stone up the hill again.”
Affirmations brings together ‘Do It’ with previous singles ‘Shit One’ and ‘Bob Dylan Was On Pawn Stars in 2010’ alongside new material. The band describe it as a record about the temptation to disengage – from the news, from other people, from the relentless grind – and the refusal to give in to it.
“‘Affirmations’ is a collection of songs about turning inwards when this fresh hell becomes too much to process. Why not fixate on some petty little anxiety instead? You’ll probably… feel better?”
“We find ourselves at a curious moment, where our techno-fascist god-kings are taking any opportunity to decry empathy and introspection as the root of all evil, while their pathetic devotees and mouthpieces try to boil every human interaction down to something transactional.”
“It’s easy to look at the horrors unfolding around the world right now and just switch off, give in to your own powerlessness and say ‘fuck it, it’s all fucked anyway’. The culture and the attention economy that suckles it almost seems to demand this from us.”
“That feeling must be spat out and rejected.”
“Lurching from one panic attack to the next, our album ultimately seeks a rejection of navel-gazing nihilism – by recognising how easy it is to slip into, then pointing at it and laughing; whether that’s trying to escape the indignity of other human bodies on a crowded Dublin bus by glueing your eyes to a phone, or a stream-of-consciousness existential breakdown about finding Bob Dylan on an episode of Pawn Stars.”
“Go climb a tree, scream into a pillow, and tell your friends you love them.”
The band have spent the past few years becoming one of the most combustible live acts on either side of the Irish Sea – SXSW, The Great Escape, Other Voices, stages with Franz Ferdinand, The Murder Capital and Gurriers. They play Collins Barracks in Dublin on Sunday August 30th supporting Super Furry Animals and Baxter Dury, with the album landing earlier that month.
Really Good Time live dates
Tue 12th May – London – The Sebright Arms
Wed 13th May – Bristol – The Croft
Thu 14th May – Brighton – The Great Escape
Fri 29th May – Galway, Ireland – Éalú Le Grá
Sunday 31st May – Eupen, Belgium – Eupen Musik Marathon
Sun 30th Aug – Dublin – Collins Barracks (w/ Super Furry Animals & Baxter Dury)
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
