Gilla Band - Pugnello
Rough Trade
Gilla Band's frenetic fourth foray into the music world takes the shape of an infinitely-tentacled, noise-induced behemoth. Spheres of pulsating insanity await the listener. Pugnello pisses vinegar, right after the razorblades. The singles - "Giraffe", "Placeholder" and "Alogia" - alluded to something of a more electronically tinted sound palette. Dancefloors caked with phlegm; discoballs which spit paintstripper at the most inconvenient of times; a lighting system that blinds those in attendance.
Frontman Dara battles with schizophrenia. The music alluded to it. The signs were always there, in a musical sense - a maniacal pulse at the heart of the output. Art induced schizophrenia; schizophrenia induced art. We've heard many a manic moment from Gilla Band over the years, but none as straight-up demonic as the intro "The Angelus". As the track goes on it delves deeper and deeper into caustic revery. As it falls it builds its own four-walled fate.
'Gary Lineker's a crisp maniac'
'The fake blink
The double wink
The nation of elbow grease'
Elvis has certainly left the building, and a rather acerbic spirit has taken his place.
One of the most (un/intentionally?) hilarious lyrics that I've heard this year is on "Placeholder":
'I'm injecting a lethal dose of nothing
I'm blaring a dangerous amount of Coldplay'
The voice inside of your skull that won't let you go. A mind that measures once and cuts twice. Gnawing away. Feeding on your soul. Brain fogged and fucked off. Trapped in another self. A self which refuses to step aside. Under the skin. Jekyll and Hyde. The doors of Hell prying open behind your eyelids. Bubbling up. Veins full of misguided intentions. Out of tune compass'. Dialled-up to the wrong tone. Loose from ear-to-ear. Madness from an endless source - the source itself.
Everyday Irish phrases are thrown about on the third and final single released in the run-up to Pugnello, "Alogia". Alogia being a reduction in or loss of function in speech; often referred to as "poverty of speech".
'I'm happy out, sure look'
'D'ya know your one? She's kinda gas'
The lyrical content across Pugnello is just as, if not more, upsetting as the soundworld scraped up by the band. It's abstract and hard to follow along - it seems to emanate out of this ill-rooted space. A space where words can't possibly mean more than the reality of an insufferable living - words can only ever sniff and claw at the surface of said existence.
'Toenails are buttered
Your mutter is cluttered
Tamagotchi abuse
Duck, duck, duck, duck the goose'
"Jacobsons" is like being repeatedly lobotomised by electrically-charged tins of tomato soup. Andy Warhol's fate, had the gallbladder not gotten to him first.
'Where do you go when you're told to "fuck off"?'
An evil spirit has found itself trapped inside the DAW. Its only way out is to perform and please its master. Dance boy! I should be happy? I should be DEAD. Claim your prize and the price on my head. Do me a favour. The contents could never be captured. The body is dead, but the spirit captures yet another.
'Today the world woke up without you'
McDonalds tablets to fall asleep. McDonalds tablets to wake up. McDonalds tablets to get you through the day. A best friend that wishes the worst for you.
Closing track "At the Gallop" is like Kraftwerk.... on crack - and definitely not the craic. The wires have well and truly been chewed through.
'Your auntie's psychotic
Your uncle's weird
When your dad's around'
'Your auntie's psychotic
Your uncle's weird
When your dad's not around'
'Your auntie's psychotic
Your uncle's weird
Your dad's dead'
Gilla Band have somehow dialled up the sinister side of their already left-leaning repertoire. Only God knows how - or does he?
