Weekend Intermission – Gilla Band (Ireland) – Pugnello (album)

Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.

Gilla Band’s music has long been a furious and exhilarating ride – if you could handle it. Rather an acquired taste, the band’s fourth album finesses the brutal, polishes it into something essential and memorable, takes you somewhere it did not quite manage to before, and thereby makes it harder to ignore.

‘Pugnello’ is noisy, yes, but to dismiss it at that, would be to miss the point entirely. Gilla Band has finally harnessed its bag of tricks, delivered what it had somehow promised to, the physical bodies of the songs almost marching into the rooms that people are listening to them in.

The 10 tracks here violently assault the listener in the most irrepressible manner – brutal vocals, pummelling drums, wrecking ball guitars, electronic elements only exacerbating it all, and a density to the air you believe might suffocate you. This music makes you feel, asks you to follow its makers, and then makes you shed your expectations as well as your inhibitions, simply to revel in the undeniable joyride, to be beaten by its brilliance.

Singles ‘Giraffe’ and ‘Placeholder’ were a good introduction to the new album, though it goes even further into its abyss of dark glory. It even drops the listener down there knowing they would not look back. ‘Placeholder’ with its nightclub-ready groove shows a transforming band going to new places. A minute and a half in, the song unleashes all hell, bringing to mind a chaotic dance floor, before it drops away and threatens to assault us again.

That it never quite does seems even more remarkable. It just simmers, low-key lyrics, all whispered minimalist industrial noise for several minutes. It is even more powerful than the constant noise, a highlight that leaves you captivated.

The lead singer’s theatrical, even maniacal voice is pure punk, the rulebook thrown out the window, each song’s demise hitting the reset button before a fresh bombardment. ‘Jacobsons’ pounds its way in, a drum machine wave driving itself into the consciousness. Gilla Band knows what it is about, and the relentlessness is irresistible if also uncomfortable.

The cyber-glitch punk of ‘Computer Sadness’ feels all too easy to understand in this day and age, and ‘Giraffe’ resembles scythes and blades, chopping and chasing, and the mood suggests survival might be less than likely.

It ends on the extraordinary electronic barrage of ‘At the Gallop’ (which follows on from the cacophony of chaos that was ‘Crisp Pop’), as that track vanishes halfway through and then reappears, returning to its unfinished business, before again slipping off the precipice to end the violent and vibrant record.

The scathing sound and intense commentary – touching on bereavement, mental health, and pop culture (whether spoken, ranted, sung, or yelled) almost give you whiplash, the 43 minutes here hard, harrowing, and heavenly.

Gilla Band has made it to the Promised Land, and this album is the sound of that arrival. This is a statement, and a statement win at that.

NMC rating: 8/10

(continues after the Spotify link)

Find them on:

Website: https://www.gillaband.com/