Biography
Led by vocalist and songwriter Daniel Anderson, The Rags have built a passionately devoted following on home shores for their sophisticated blend of melodically inventive guitar-pop and razor-sharp lyrical expressiveness.
The album is preceded by the release of the single ‘A National Light’ on May 14th; the album’s Joyce-sampling, Yeats-referencing title track which wonderfully articulates a redemptive call to arms by means of a fantastical apparition. “I had a dream that there was blood in stream and the heads of the parliament drowned–face down, Gucci suits and blank cheque books burst the banks of the Liffey and we owned the city”. ‘A National Light’ cuts deep into the carcass of Irish society to unearth the crushing beauty still stitched in the fabric of its modern mechanisms: “Pearse was smiling at Joyce recoiling, By the granite of his grave Oscar prayed”.
The feelings and sentiments of which are expressed on these tracks are underpinned by a unifying sense of purpose. The sordid narrative observed amid the swirling web of sinister guitar hooks and throbbing drumbeats of ‘A Murderous Chant’, the deceptively danceable Wildean-themed elaboration on superficiality ‘A Mirror To A Woman (Is A Bullet In A Gun)’ and the quiet desperation at the heart of the delicately psychedelic ‘Owner Of A Loveless Life’ provide the foundation for a remarkable modern pop record. ‘A National Light’ laments the spirit-crushing travails of modernity while shining a benevolent beam of consolation on us all.
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