Raglans

I came across Raglans when researching my post on The Hot Sprockets. The band's music is a bit removed from classic americana but they fall nicely into the edges of the genre along with the Eskies and The Hot Sprockets whom I have already featured on this blog. All three bands produce folk infused rock. The music of Raglans could be further described as indie-americana. Imagine your classic English indie band (I'm thinking the View) except with mandolins. The band is made up of Stephen, Rhos, Conn and Liam who hail from Co. Wicklow. They already have three E.P.'s to their name "Down" released last year and two released this year, "Raglans" in January and "Long Live" just last month.

The sound has progressed since the first E.P. emerged in early 2011. The tracks on "Down" were straight forward pop-indie-folk tracks as typified by "Build Your Bridges".

Listening to tracks on the "Raglans" and "Long Live" e.p's you can feel that punk timbre coming through especially in a track like "Digging Holes". The song has one of the best video's ever made by an Irish band. Yes I'm even talking better that the Saw Doctors N-17 video. Its part Hardy Bucks-esque and I think part piss take of all those rap video's you see where they have these slow track shots of the rappers on the streets looking mean. Instead these guys are looking mean on a massey.

A song like "Roll Away" proves that the band doesn’t need clever video's to garner fans. The song is a beautifully structured, composed piece on loss which builds to a warm crescendo of guitar, voice, brass and mandolin.

The Facebook page is here and the Bandcamp where you can find the E.P.'s. As I mentioned with The Hot Sprockets, they are co-headlining with them on June 23rd in the Village in Dublin.