GILLA BAND - Pugnello

Despite constantly finding themselves one step away from becoming a band of wider popularity, Gilla Band seem determined to avoid it, refusing to budge an inch from their intention to make "disturbing" records. Listening to any of their projects is bound to put the listener through the wringer, and "Pugnello" is no exception, missing no opportunity to create a genuine state of discomfort, both physical and emotional.
You listen to their instruments, you perceive them, you recognise them, but gradually they morph into a dense, barely decodable industrial-noise tangle, one that's objectively impossible to replicate for anyone hoping to pinch a few of their little secrets. This time the credit seems to be due (besides the work carried out by bassist Daniel Fox, an increasingly sought-after producer) to a latest-generation synth, the Perkons-HD-01, capable of processing sound and making it distinctly personal. For a couple of thousand euros you too can get your hands on this nifty piece of kit.

"The Angelus", placed at the start of the tracklist, immediately presents itself as a kind of dissonant nuclear apocalypse, during which the three musicians (besides Fox there's guitarist Alan Duggan Borges and drummer Adam Faulknern) conjure up a wild ball of sound. "Crisp Pop" is another fitting example of an impenetrable wall of noise, a track that sounds like the clattering of a speeding train, a rhythm that's ultimately danceable, yet one that aims to drag us not so much into a nightclub as on a tour inside a steelworks, shaping almost eight minutes of sonic torture. If we had to find a point of comparison, Gilla Band could be considered the My Bloody Valentine of the new millennium, for their firm resolve to turn the sounds of their instruments into something utterly unconventional.

Moving on to the lyrics, Dara Kiely – the band's singer – once again draws inspiration from his own mental health struggles, alternating scathing spoken-word delivery with inhuman screams. But in "Pugnello" a second recurring theme is introduced: the processing of a grief that struck Kiely directly, the death of his father, with whom he had always had a complex, fragmented relationship. In these songs Kiely channels all his anger, his frustrations, his difficulty in processing the pain, right up to recognising his own numbness, even in the face of such enormous distress, in the liberating, self-aware cry "I should be more sad". The grief also surfaces in the closing "At The Gallop", an imagined conversation between him and his late father. The track's title is identical to that of the 1975 album by the progressive rock band his father Michael played in, Cromwell, a choice that makes the message even more powerful.

Such "heavy" subject matter is constantly tempered through ironic writing, built on wordplay, nonsense, outlandish jokes, unexpected references to pop culture, at times barely audible: the words are often swallowed up by the sound the band produces. All of it grafted onto an uncontrolled stream of consciousness, sprung from the frontman's own nightmares. In "Crisp Pop" Kiely pairs britpop bands with crisp flavours, elsewhere he brings up Power Rangers, Diet Coke, Teletubbies, Bananas in Pyjamas and Coldplay, blending despair and sarcasm in the process. "Placeholder" comes across as a form of ultra-noisy funk, the energetic "Jacobson" is violent techno played with traditional instruments, a kind of futuristic kraut, a "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" by Wilco pushed to the extreme.

The ten tracks are tormented, brutal, unsettling, steeped in a constant sense of disorientation. A repellent anti-pop that at times turns into driving dance music, as happens in exemplary fashion during "Giraffe", which suddenly changes direction thanks to a skilful shift in tempo that transforms the situation into an out-and-out rave party. These are among the few moments of release amid tonnes of near-unbearable tension. One could consider "Pugnello" a form of post-modern Dadaism, centred on the most intimate traumas, a radical project perfectly in line with everything the Irish band has recorded so far. On "Alogia", a clinical term denoting the poverty of speech affecting people with mental disorders, Kiely confronts his schizophrenia diagnosis head-on with unsettling clarity; amid the chaotic, anguished din of "The Megazord", amid the atonal screeches of "Computer Sadness", in the maddening ticking of "Three Hands Clapping", it feels as though you're in the presence of a faulty sound signal. The band always moves in unison, like a cannonball fired at a stone wall, a bomb packed with vertigo, anguish, hostility, nausea, rendered through layers of sound that generate chaos, blurring any reasonable boundary between post-punk, industrial-noise, no-wave and techno music.

In the four years since the release of the previous "Most Normal", each member of Gilla Band devoted themselves to other artistic pursuits: Kiely cultivated a passion for painting, Faulkner played drums for fellow Irishmen Lankum, Fox specialised in production work, Borges launched his solo project Null Club. But it's only once all four are back together that they manage to raise the bar on what's possible today with a guitar, a bass, a drum kit, a hefty rack of effects and a voice as sincere and effective as this. Until all of this turns into something else entirely, amid walls of distortion and warped tonalities. Gilla Band, more than a decade on from their debut, remain the most singular example of everything that has happened around the new post-punk scene over the past fifteen years.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

01/10/2026