The Irish noise-rockers formerly known as Girl Band have announced their third album—the first under their new moniker, Gilla Band—Most Normal, coming Oct. 7 on Rough Trade Records. Lead single “Eight Fivers” is accompanied by a hypnotic music video, directed and animated by Mortis Studios, with an assist from Ruben Hernandez.
Gilla Band self-produced Most Normal at Dublin’s Sonic Studios and their rehearsal space, with bassist Daniel Fox handling recording and mixing. And while the pandemic meant they couldn’t road-test any of their new material live, it also meant the band could, as drummer Adam Faulkner puts it, “pull things apart and be like, ‘Let’s try this.’ We could try out every wild idea.” Added to that mix was modern hip-hop, “where there’s really heavy-handed production and they’re messing with the track the whole time,” says Fox. “That felt like a fun route to go down, it was a definite influence.” A press release describes the resulting album as “a kaleidoscopic spectrum of noise put in service of broken pop songs, FX-strafed avant-punk rollercoaster rides and passages of futurist dancefloor nihilism.”
Our punchy first preview of the record, “Eight Fivers” feels almost like a random snatch of conversation set to mercurial, industrial dance-rock. Faulkner’s incessant drums and frontman Dara Kiely’s sneering vocal are in lockstep from the jump, as the latter laments, “I spent all my money on / Shit clothes, shit clothes,” but the song sets you up only to knock you down, using its equilibrium against you at unpredictable intervals. Fox’s thrumming bass and disorienting guitar feedback engulf the track when you least expect it, like a reminder that your style crisis means nothing relative to the storm of apocalypse outside.
“‘Eight Fivers’ is about being out of touch with modern circumstances while feeling socially limited,” Kiely explains in a statement. “Never fitting in and kind of proud of it. Stuck with what I have and happy for it. Being grateful and not fashionable, self-conscious and too aware of what is lacking. Accepting that jealousy has played a big role in my life but trying not to feed into it.”
Fresh off a run of European shows with IDLES, Gilla Band have a handful of festival sets on the horizon this summer and into the fall, with more U.K. and E.U. touring to follow.
Watch the “Eight Fivers” video below, and find the details of Most Normal further down, along with Gilla Band’s tour dates.
Most Normal Tracklist:
01. The Gum
02. Eight Fivers
03. Backwash
04. Gushie
05. Binliner Fashion
06. Capgras
07. The Weirds
08. I Was Away
09. Almost Soon
10. Red Polo Neck
11. Pratfall
12. Post Ryan
Most Normal Art:
Gilla Band Tour Dates:
July
16 – Jetzendorf, DE @ Puch Open Air
18 – Gent, UK @ Boomtown
29 – Waterford, UK @ All Together Now Festival
August
06 – Genk, BE @ Absolutely Free Festival
11-13 – Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival
September
09 – Asten Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
17 – Leicester, UK @ Wide Eyed Festival
October
15 – Birmingham, UK @ Future Days Festival
16 – Bristol, UK @ Trinity
18 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
19 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3
20 – Manchester, UK @ O2 The Ritz
22 – London, UK @ O2 Forum
23 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK
November
11 – Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City Festival
12 – Reims, FR @ La Cartonnerie Club
13 – Lyon, FR @ Le Marche Gare
15 – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F
16 – Milan, IT @ Biko
17 – Munich, DE @ Strom
19 – Berlin, DE @ Lido
21 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
22 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
24 – Cologne, DE @ Artheater
25 – Rotterdam, NL @ Maassilio
26 – Paris, FR @ La Gaite Lyrique
December
09 – Dublin, IE @ National Stadium
15 – Belfast, IE @ The Empire
