Wifeswap's debut EP 'Digging' is out now - Chris Mullan reviews
- Chris Mullan
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
As Dublin's lit rock outfit Wifeswap release their debut storytelling EP Digging on streaming platforms and 12" vinyl, Chris Mullan delivers his review.
I’m looking at the copy of John Gibney’s A Short History of Ireland sitting on my office desk as I try to conjure some kind of narrative that can, this afternoon, match the emotional hit of Digging, the debut EP from the ascendent Dublin rock band Wifeswap. Touted in early press clippings as ‘art rock’ (though here in the lyrical sense as opposed to the technical genre) and a ‘literary band’ along the lines of early Fontaines D.C. or Shane MacGowan, Wifeswap are the latest arrivals from a long line of Irish storytellers and superstars.
‘My first flowers, funeral flowers’ is the utterly devastating final line in Bosman Ruling and can’t help but induce feelings prevalent throughout the works of another Irish literary icon - Samuel Beckett, on the futility of the human condition; of existential hopelessness.
The title alone, Digging, drops us right in Bellaghy, County Derry – recalling the ubiquitous opening poem from Seamus Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist. From there, we’re welcomed into frontman Joe Brody’s world of “detachment and numbness” that carves a sinister valley through the brilliant five-song run on Digging.
Lead single and opening track Bosman Ruling sets the tone and where Brody’s vocal contains traces of Morrissey in its pained delivery; where Johnny Marr would have let light in through shimmering guitar, the rhythm section of Cian Bates and Lorcan Connolly ensure uneasiness prevails. It is a dark and beautiful turn and the best couple of minutes put to record in Wifeswap’s short career thus far. ‘My first flowers, funeral flowers’ is the utterly devastating final line in Bosman Ruling and can’t help but induce feelings prevalent throughout the works of another Irish literary icon - Samuel Beckett, on the futility of the human condition; of existential hopelessness.
Elsewhere on the EP there are some fantastic turns. Clearly comfortable in their own skin, this is an impressively coherent and accomplished offering from four young artists and it feels like the EP format is limiting to a group already with so much to say. Through the next four tracks they wear their influences easily on their sleeves: from shades of Whipping Boy on the spoken word delivery on Clutch II that’s sits atop a bed of the uneasy jangle of Skinty Fia-era Fontaines, to the closer Laughter which hints faintly at U2’s arena-sized melancholy. Though Joe Brody offers a far more authentic take on the perils of heroin addiction than Bono ever did.
Clearly comfortable in their own skin, this is an impressively coherent and accomplished offering from four young artists and it feels like the EP format is limiting to a group already with so much to say.
And therein lies the rub with Digging: despite a final song titled Laughter, there is no let-up. It could be counted as the darkest song on an already heavy record. There is no catharsis, just the ongoing numbness of grief in their Beckett-esque world of despair, existentialism and coping with the proverbial void.
In their own short history of Ireland, on the beautiful Digging.
You can order vinyl copies of Digging here:
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