Gilla Band have released their first song since the 2019 album The Talkies and the name change
‘Eight Fivers’ is a song the Dublin band debuted at the recent Whelan’s residency in the city.
” I spent on my money on shit clothes,” is how the song starts with references to Arklow, Wicklow, Eason’s, Debenhams, Spar, Aldi, Lidl and more.
“Eight Fivers is about 40 quid. It’s about being out of touch with modern circumstances while feeling socially limited. Never fitting in and kind of proud of it. Stuck with what I have and happy for it. Being grateful and not fashionable, self-conscious and too aware of what is lacking. Accepting that jealousy played a big role in my life but trying not to feed into it.”
Dara Kiely
The band’s third album is called Most Normal and is released on October 7th on Rough Trade Records.
Most Normal was self produced and recorded and mixed by the band’s Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios and their rehearsal place.
The album will be available on limited edition blue vinyl and an exclusive alt cover white vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies, and is now on pre-order.
More from the presser:
Covid lockdown robbed Gilla Band of any opportunity to try the new material out live, but the pandemic also incinerated any idea of a deadline for the new album. They were free to tinker at leisure, to rewrite and restructure and reinvent tracks they’d cut – to, as drummer Adam Faulkner puts it, “pull things apart and be like, ‘Let’s try this. We could try out every wild idea.”
The group also fell under the spell of modern hip-hop, “where there’s really heavy-handed production and they’re messing with the track the whole time,” says basses Daniel Fox. “That felt like a fun route to go down, it was a definite influence.”
The common thread holding Most Normal’s ambitious avant-pop shapes together is frontman Dara Kiely. Throughout, he’s an antic, antagonistic presence, barking wild, hilarious, unsettling spiels, babbling about smearing fish with lubricant or dressing up in bin-liners or having to wear hand-me-down boot-cut jeans (“It was a big, shameful thing, growing up, not being able to afford the look I wanted and having to wear all my brother’s old clothes, like bell-bottomed flares that got nowhere near my ankle,” says Kiely
Gilla Band – Most Normal tracklist.
- The Gum
- Eight Fivers
- Backwash
- Gushie
- Binliner Fashion
- Capgras
- The Weirds
- I Was Away
- Almost Soon
- Red Polo Neck
- Pratfall
- Post Ryan
Girl Band released the live album Live At Vicar Street since.
Gilla Band’s big Irish shows this year are at this year’s All Together Now and the National Stadium, Dublin on December 9th, and Empire, Belfast on December 15th 2022
Gilla Band tour dates
6/07/2022 Puch Open Air, Jetzendorf
18/07/2022 Boomtown, Gent
29/07/2022 All Together Now Festival, Waterford
06/08/2022 Absolutely Free Festival, Genk
11/08/2022 –
13/08/2022 Haldern Pop Festival, Haldern
09/09/2022 Misty Fields Festival, Asten Heusden
17/09/2022 Wide Eyed Festival, Leicester
15/10/2022 Future Days Festival, Birmingham
16/10/2022 Trinity, Bristol
18/10/2022 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
19/10/2022 SWG3, Glasgow
20/10/2022 O2 The Ritz, Manchester
22/10/2022 O2 Forum, London
23/10/2022 CHALK, Brighton
11/11/2022 Sonic City Festival, Kortrijk
12/11/2022 La Cartonnerie Club, Reims
13/11/2022 Le Marche Gare, Lyon
15/11/2022 Bogen F, Zurich
16/11/2022 Biko, Milan
17/11/2022 Strom, Munich
19/11/2022 Lido, Berlin
21/11/2022 Loppen, Copenhagen
22/11/2022 Knust, Hamburg
24/11/2022 Artheater, Cologne
25/11/2022 Maassilio, Rotterdam
26/11/2022 La Gaite Lyrique, Paris
09/12/2022 National Stadium, Dublin
15/12/2022 The Empire, Belfast
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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, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.