Whelan’s, Dublin
As separate entities, the elements of Adrian Crowley’s music are impressive: the dry sonorities of his voice; his shimmering chords that twist in shape from ethereal to gently menacing; the intriguing precariousness of his lyrics.
But when coerced together, the effect is subtly astonishing. Here,
Long Distance Swimmer
reduces the room’s ambience to pin-drop proportions within a few bars and wrenches out the last few delicately aggressive chords – and this at the beginning of a set.
That Crowley’s music is this crafted should be no surprise. He has five albums under his belt, each gathering more critical acclaim than its predecessor, building up a musically appreciative head of steam that manifested itself in recent weeks when Crowley won the Choice Music Prize – the feeling among many is that he utterly deserved it. Given the strength of this performance, his success is indisputable. Crowley begins the night solo and brings on his three-piece band for the majority of the show. Again, it’s a meeting of complementary, cohesive musical minds. The bass of Steve Shannon (who also produced Choice winner Season of the Sparks) reinforces the humming spines of Crowley’s elegant constructions, guitarist Jeff Martin builds lines that allow the songs to lift up their heads, and Cillian McDonnell’s drumming holds the line – and at the heart of it all is Crowley’s voice, which fills up the space carved out by the other instruments, the steady hand upon the tiller.
The band have honed these tracks to a keen edge, and where most would head for the corner flag of increasingly loud waves of distortion, the tension here is constructed in a much more intriguing fashion – rarely do the band let the tracks explode but when they do the result is quietly devastating.
Adrian Crowley deserves bigger stages than this, and now he will surely get them.
