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Well will ya look at this – a new track by Land Lovers, re-recorded and mastered and mixed and spit polished, all for your delicate ears to enjoy.
Have an aul’ gander and a listen here at the Popical Island tumblr.
Visit their myspace and send them love letters signed ‘yours, Owly’.
"Three cheers for downloaders!"
Any band worth their salt these days has a Bandcamp site, and Dublin band Land Lovers are no stranger to this resource. And being the generous types they are, they’re now offering people the chance to download both of their releases from their site for free. Just click here and let the musical journey commence.
Land Lovers was formed by Pádraig Cooney in Dublin in 2007, initially as a solo project. It has now blossomed into a five-piece band with a full-length album and EP under its belt. I admit that I am biased (I have a Land Lover of my own at home to love), but I think these are two brilliant and, dare I say it, underrated releases and Pádraig is one of the best lyricists I’ve heard in a long time. Seriously. This dude can write. Just listen:
I’m not the only one who thinks they rock, though:
“uncommonly smart pop…fresh melodies engage first, then fantastic lyrics kick in…achingly sweet…the wonderful, self conscious love song The Black Country easily lives up to the standard of Back on the Chain Gang, from which it borrows its opening riff…perfectly formed collection. 4/5“ – The Irish Times
“Beautiful guitar hooks, the production is near perfect for what is essentially a home recording – 4/5“ – The Sunday Tribune
“A sparky little gem from Dublin’s DIY leftfield… with a stinging lyric sheet. Vocalist Pádraig Cooney is both wounded poet and cynical dissector of modern mores and his sonic furnishings of clipped guitars and wobbly eighties synths make for a smart, no-frills backdrop. A hugely promising and highly recommended debut.” – 4/5, RTÉ Guide
Land Lovers will play a late night gig upstairs in Whelans on 30th April.
Romance, Romance
By Aoife Barry
Dubliner Padraig Cooney has only just released his debut album ‘Romance Romance’, under the moniker Land Lovers, but for a new person in the music scene, he’s attracting quite a bit of positive attention. Perhaps that’s got to do with the infectious melodies and witty lyrics that feature in his upbeat, synth-pop indie songs.
“I kind of came pretty late to bands – I wasn’t in bands when I was young,” explains Padraig, when asked about his first forays into creating music. And even when he did join a band, it took a while before he found his feet. “I got into a band when I finished college, with a couple of friends,” he says, “and we really didn’t know what we were doing at all, but they were the only people I knew who played instruments so we kind of pottered around for a few years.” His former band exists in another – more professional – incarnation, and Padraig left after a while to pursue his own thing.
“I decided that at a certain point I wanted to go do something myself. I tried to start another band, but we were very unsuccessful. We played two gigs, it was just really hard to get a band together – again, I was in a situation where I didn’t know too many musicians,” he explains. After this false start, it was time to try another approach. “So I decided…last year to just buy a home recording set-up and make my own album and see if making my own album would happen into a band…that was the album I made, the Land Lovers album, so I made it to get a band and I have got a band with it.”
Inspired by the likes of Elvis Costello – “[he] was my all time hero” – and songwriters such as Luke Haines and Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, Padraig started on his own solo creations. At first, he says it “probably came across as very bland pop music – Crowded House or something”, but with time he began to hone his craft and develop his own more independent sound.
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