Irish post-punk five-piece The Murder Capital have never shied from unfiltered emotion and saying what's on their minds, and their highly anticipated third album ‘Blindness’ is no exception. A contrast from their polished and layered second album ‘Gigi’s Recovery’, ‘Blindness’ is a caustic explosion of angst, love, and turbulence.
Genre-spanning and with varying pace across the tracks, ‘Blindness’ covers a lot of ground in its 40 minute play time. Sonically, there is everything from Indie Rock, to Garage and Grunge, with softer moments interspaced. Opening track ‘Moonshot’ is aggressive and raw, with fuzzy guitar and gritty vocals, and ‘Words Lost Meaning’ is 90s grunge incarnate. But there’s more to the album than that, with plenty of gentler moments. The contrast from ‘Can’t Pretend to Know’ to ‘A Distant Life’ is whiplash inducing but immaculately done. There are plenty of great moments on the album, but one of the best is ‘Death of a Giant’, which allows James McGovern’s vocals to take a backseat and lets the guitar shine.
There’s a lot packed into the lyrics across the album. ‘Love of Country’, previously released as a charity single for aid in Palestine, is an emotional ballad about weaponised nationalism, with powerful commentary in the lyrics “Could you blame me for mistaking your love of country for hate of men?”. ‘Can’t Pretend to Know’ is angsty and existentialist, but ‘A Distant Life’ is a lighter track, almost a love song, with drawling vocals and distorted guitar. The final track ‘Trailing Wing’ slows the pace and moves into a lamenting, melancholy tale of love and loss.
‘Blindness’ feels like a return to The Murder Capital’s roots, with a sound closer to their debut album and their characteristic combination of storytelling lyrics and scuzzy sound.
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