The Murder Capital - Gigi’s Recovery

In the natural order of things, bands follow a standard timeline: Get to know each other, form a band (these two stages are interchangeable), hone your craft, write songs that will appeal, unleash on the public. A tried and tested method.

Not so much for The Murder Capital. Although the Dublin five-piece formed at college and found success and acclaim with 2019 debut When I Have Fears, the album was released within 9 months of their knowing each other and, by their own admission, they only became firm friends during the pandemic. In tandem, the tortuous months of isolation afforded the group the opportunity for merciless self-evaluation, while guitarists Cathal Roper and Damien Tuit invested in new FX pedals and synths to expand their sound.

Money well spent. While When I Have Fears was equally blistering and urgent, Gigi’s Recovery offers more varied textures and sonic experimentation. Comeback single ‘A Thousand Lives’, with its scratchy, trip-hop percussion, shimmering synths and arch guitar licks, set the standard last year, each instrument revealing itself slowly across the course of the song before a snarling outro. Likewise ‘Crying’, on which scaling and queasily dipping violas precede purposeful drums and a bruising bass, as the group work their way through the gears. Virtually all of the tracks follow this pattern of building as they go, almost a musical metaphor for the burgeoning relationships between the members of the group.

https://gigwise.com/reviews/3428453/album-review--the-murder-capital-gigi-s-recovery