Girl Band – Holding Hands With Jamie

Having checked that yes, this is an album – and not a cake made by hyper-active children with every conceivable ingredient thrown somewhere in the general direction of the oven – the Dublin quartet’s highly anticipated debut isn’t easily forgotten. Or even straightforward to categorise; the adjectives it attracts (abrasive, counter-intuitive, paranoid) are insufficient when detailing the ferocious, freeform mess of antagonistic brutalism smeared all over the place.

Recorded in just three days on the back of a stateside jaunt, this is sentiment pinging between shards of non-sequitur pain and Arab Strap-esque minutiae, lead single Paul a sly blitz of build and bruise, Fucking Butter obsessing over a well-known chocolate spread. And throughout, above scuzzy bass and obtuse percussion, Dara Kiely rants and wails with the cathartic honesty of Birthday Party-era Nick Cave, Alan Duggan wielding guitar as if a blowtorch. Such mess doesn’t always hang together (In Plastic; Baloo), but when it does, Holding Hands With Jamie is either the greatest thing you’ll hear all year, or will give you a migraine; quite possibly both.