One of the best things about moving to a new city is finding new music – discovering bands that may not be well known (yet) in your previous home town, or bands that simply haven’t fallen onto your radar.
When I moved to Dublin two years ago, Groom were one of the bands I was really looking forward to seeing, not least because they were mentioned a lot on the Thumped forum and I was curious to experience what they were like live.
I think the first performance by Groom that I saw was in the Lower Deck, a quirky space in the bowels of a pub near Portobello bridge that makes up in charm what it lacks in sound quality (no disrespect to the sound engineers, but the building isn’t quite laid out in a way that is conducive to perfect sound). As it turns out, I have seen Groom play in that space many times since, and it has been a pleasure to watch them grow as a band.
Marriage, their most recent album, is – not to sound too clichéd – an indication that Groom have matured as a group, that they have stepped things up from their previous works and that they have tightened up their act. They still retain the twee, whimsical elements in their sound but their ideas are more solid and their focus clearer.
It’s a beautiful album, recorded ‘as one’ and based around the theme of – you guessed it – relationships and marriage. It’s no surprise that Mike, the chief wordsmith in the band, wrote lyrics that are all about love, because anyone who knows him knows that his love for his wife and children is a really special thing. And he and his bandmates – Wil (he and Mike are the funniest people I have ever interviewed), Jeroen, Brian and Ruan – have created an album that is a fitting tribute to love in all of its forms, the highs and lows and the special moments that make it all worth it.
Groom will release the single This Golden Age on Wednesday, November 10 (that’s tomorrow night) in Shebeen Chic, Dublin.
Here’s the single version of the song, which has a wonderful Latin feel to it. Check out the trumpets!
Expect the lads to take to the stage at 9:30pm and admission is free (they’re awfully generous, these fellas). Oh, and you can get This Golden Age from groom.bandcamp.com from November 10, for the price of one email address. Wonderful.
This Thursday, November 11th, the video for the song will be shown on the “Under Ether” music show, RTE2
Monday November 15th they will perform in the Roisin Dubh, Galway, for a Popical Island collective night
