You wouldn’t believe it by what’s played on the radio, but the past year has seen the Irish music scene explode in nearly every genre. Independent hip-hop, dance, and pop artists have taken the time in lockdown to hit new heights with their work, and the reopening of live events is soon to put some of Ireland’s most exciting new music in the spotlight. We’ve seen this growth in rock and metal as well, with punk artists such as The Murder Capital, Mhaol and Cherym releasing new and genre bending work, and it’s reassuring to know pop-punk will get its time to shine with Crown The King, and their debut EP ‘Groundhog Day’.
The Dublin based five-piece hit the ground running with ‘Melissa’, opening with some crashing Freeze The Atlantic-style riffs that move into an airy and grand chorus. CTK have done their homework when it comes to the genre and out of the four tracks, this would feel the most home on the soundtrack of a Tony Hawk or Burnout game. ‘Running on Empty’ is a more bouncy number, driven by some sharp and speedy guitars from Seán Hodson and Alan Shiels. There’s a summery flair here with that fuzzy 2000s pop-punk vibe throughout the mixing that adds to the “party in the skatepark” vibe CTK do such a good job of encapsulating, even if the production can sometimes cramp some of the instrumentals and prevent them from hitting their full stride.
The titular ‘Groundhog Day’ throws a little more violence into the mix with a raging, exasperated chorus lamenting the loss of identity and dreaming of an escape from the usual day-to-day: “We could run, but where the fuck would we go?”. Out of the four tracks, this is perhaps the standout, with CTK feeling the most at home in their sound. The processing over the vocals here, and elsewhere, does take away from some of the power of vocalist Dan Gannon’s voice at times, whose ring announcer background otherwise serves him excellently in delivering a frantic intensity that of old school pop-punk like Sugarcult.
‘I Miss You (But I Don’t Feel Bad)’ rounds out the field with some fast-paced, helter-skelter drums and bass from Eanna Brown and Jamie Doran respectively. For a band forced to find their sound in a pandemic, there’s a lot of cohesion and confidence throughout ‘Groundhog Day’. It’s not an experimental outing but it’s made up for with the buckets of energy and charisma the band exude. In a rock genre that often loses some heaviness through it’s lighter, airy instrumentation, CTK are able to inject a surprising amount of weight in places, largely in part due to those thick basslines that add a little bit to the lower end of the band’s tracks.
With ‘Groundhog Day’, CTK have set the table for a breakout moment. There’s so much to like here, with a veritable colour swatch of pop-punk influences the quintet dip into often and eagerly mixed with some harder punk elements that round off their sound nicely. It’s not without fault but it gives a lot of room for growth in future records while providing an exceptionally enjoyable first release to get up and move to. At this rate, pop-punk may well have it’s day in the sun in Ireland again.
FIACHRA JOHNSTON