Gilla Band - Pugnello (CD)

Gilla Band never know where they're going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet - vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner - have been redefining what you could loosely call "rock music" in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015's Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019's The Talkies, and 2022's Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn't quite post-punk, wasn't quite noise-rock, wasn't quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them. As soon as they submitted Most Normal for mastering, they began the patient search for their next destination. Over time, the process led them to their fourth album Pugnello, the boldest left turn in a career full of them.

In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana's Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors' Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album's vision.

1 The Angelus
2 Placeholder
3 Alogia
4 Three Hands Clapping
5 Jacobsons
6 The Megazord
7 Computer Sadness
8 Giraffe
9 Crisp Pop
10 At the Gallop