LAND LOVERS
Album Launch
This May, Land Lovers release their third full-length album, The Rooks Have Returned. Founding members and key contributors to the Popical Island collective (Paddy Hanna, Tieranniesaur, Squarehead, Ginnels, No Monster Club, etc.), they are in their own right central to much of what has been good about Dublin’s independent music scene in the last 5 years. The Rooks Have Returned departs from the polished pop complexity of 2011’s Confidants: the songs are more concise, trimmed of excess – it is an exercise in economy and urgency, with a darkened lyrical palate. The band is captured live by producer Mark Chester in the treasure-trove of Dublin’s Orphan Studios, with some measured later additions.
Having begun as the solo project of Cooney on the album Romance Romance, Land Lovers became a 5-piece band for the Immovable Feet EP and the acclaimed Confidants LP. In the gap between that album and The Rooks Have Returned, the band collaborated with Limerick’s Windings on a split LP. Meanwhile, Cooney released two albums as Skelocrats and bassist Shane Murphy made music with Switzerland and No Monster Club. Drummer Maggie Fagan (Grand Pocket Orchestra) and keyboardist Conor Deasy (Biggles Flys Again, Tomorrows) joined the band in 2015. Guitarist Ciaran Canavan is a mainstay.
“Magnificent, haunting worlds of domestic wonder… A rare gem of a record”
Jim Carroll, The Irish Times
“Irish album of the summer, packed to the brim with gorgeous, singable tunes. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like this record in any other musical camp in the country.”
HotPress
