The hardest working band in Irish showbiz? The Aftermath are tireless exponents of their art and that hard work ethic has definitely paid off on an album that mixes monster riffs, insightful lyrics and naggingly catchy melodies into one of the years most satisfying homegrown records to date. That’s not to say that The Aftermath’s gargantuan sound is only palatable for an Irish audience. Far from it; this is music that reaches across continents. The band have cleverly deployed classic elements of American and British beat groups, given it a twist of glam and created a bunch of tracks that could sit quite happily on radio playlists anywhere in the western world. Anthemic perfectly sums up the opening tracks as lead vocalist Johnny Cronin imbues every line with a passion and integrity sadly lacking throughout the nu indie scene. When Johnny sings the chorus of All I Want Is For You To Be Happy you believe him implicitly, mainly because one couldn’t fake this sentiment with a delivery like this. The lead single and album opener Are You Not Wanting Me Yet is a belter that fuses kitchen sink drama with a Bryan Ferry vocal quirk over a backbeat of early R.E.M to produce something that sounds like a hit single. Gasping for breath the barely amplified strumming of I Wish My Love Would Die initially soothes before turning into the type of reverb soaked epic that propelled the Walker Brothers into sixties pop folklore. Northern Lingerie introduces a psychedelic twist to their layered arrangements as acid tinged guitars ape hashish sitars to form one of the albums most perfectly realised pop songs. One Is Fun is perhaps too redolent of the recent Franz Ferdinand/Kaiser Chiefs Britpop movement to stand out, even if it is a good old rollicking tune. Far more satisfying are tracks like Need, Joyful Mystery and Six Days To Saturday which see the band joyously go hell for leather albeit with an undercurrent of darkness that lifts the songs out of the ordinary.
