Stereolab
National Concert Hall, Dublin
★★★★☆
A beloved 1990s band is in Ireland for a run of sell-out shows and fans of a certain age are rolling back the years and behaving as if we’re bang in the middle of Britpop. But that band is not Oasis, and they’re not charging an arm and a leg for the privilege of sharing the same breathing space. It’s Stereolab, whose enjoyably arch and eloquent show at the National Concert Hall in Dublin puts the seal on an engaging comeback that’s seen the Anglo-French quintet release their first album in nearly 15 years and plead the case for sophisticated art-pop that isn’t afraid to wax pretentious.
Stereolab begin as they mean to continue at the NCH, arriving to a burst of throbbing distortion that speaks to their origins as experimental musicians unified by their love of 1970s krautrock, 1960s French pop and the weird, wonky indie rock that flourished in the UK before Blur and Oasis bulldozed it into oblivion.
There has always been a vintage component to their sound – even in the 1990s they were looking to the past for inspiration – and the stage tonight is kitted out with several bulky retro computers straight from the set of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World. But the music is bang up to date as Stereolab open with their 2025 single Aerial Troubles. It’s an elegantly angry song about late-stage capitalism and the emptiness of consumer culture that is never whiny or preachy and (a massive bonus this) has grooves you can dance to.
Stereolab are a quintessential 1990s group to the extent that the individual players are anonymous and shy of the spotlight, with the exception of deadpan frontwoman Laetitia Sadier. Whether singing in English or French, the Paris-born singer is both wry and sincere, laconic in her banter yet entirely earnest when crooning about the evils of capitalism or the importance of advocating for peace in a troubled world.
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As she and her bandmates go at it full pelt, it is easy to see why they’ve become a beacon to left field hip-hop artists such as Tyler, the Creator and Mac Miller, who have sampled their work. Their songs are full of surprises – there may be a tempo shift that comes out of nowhere or a sudden burst of melody – yet threaded through the music is a feeling of exhilaration and a commitment to taking their sound to places new and daring.
Sadier doesn’t hesitate to ask the audience to bring something to the concert, urging the room to its feet and later expressing puzzlement at how quiet everyone is (actually, it’s a reasonably bustling show by NCH standards). Just to keep it interesting, she occasionally whips out a trombone when Stereolab embark on several brisk art-rock jams.
New album Instant Holograms on Metal Film accounts for more than half the set, with just three tracks from their biggest record, 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup. But these are worth waiting for. Percolator is described by Sadier as “about being scared, in fear ... but doing it anyway”. She introduces the final tune – fan favourite Cybele’s Reverie – by thanking the audience for coming “to this big room with a very tall ceiling”. The ceiling may be tall, but it doesn’t stop Stereolab from rising to the occasion with a show that’s as clever as anything, illuminated at all times by a sense of wonder and daring.
