Punk band adapt creative process through pandemic

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

It feels like Slyrydes’ name has been circulating around the Irish music scene for a long time – but it’s really the last two years that have seen the Galway four-piece take major strides with their act. And of the six singles the band has released in that time, the latest is their bravest and most distinguishable track.

Though it is perhaps the most coherent and conventionally structured song Slyrydes have come out with, its subject matter is powerful and typically emotive.

Boy in the Debs Suit was released on March 8 – and it chronicles the story of a missing person in Galway.

Slyrydes are a noisy band and the shouted vocals and screeching guitars remain crucial on Debs Suit but the single is a new direction for the group in terms of melody and accessibility.

With the track featuring on a debut album set for release later in the year, it does not imply that they won’t return to a heavier, thrashier sound but it emphasises how varied and dynamic their style can be.

“I think we were always a bit wary of people thinking we were a sort of two-dimensional punk band,” admits bassist Fuz Reilly.

“Our music sounds very hard and there’s a lot of shouting and feedback but we never set out to be that band. When we went into the studio to record the album and we were dealing with a shortlist of twelve songs that could go on the record, we could see the different facets and sides to how we sound. We were excited to introduce that to the people that hadn’t heard us before.”

Alongside Fuz, the band is made up of frontman Marc Raftery, lead guitarist Mark Comer and drummer Paul Clarke. Though the lyrics are left strictly in the hands of Marc, the group’s chemistry is evident in the relationship between the words and the music. Fuz notes that the lead singer seems to mirror the mood and tone of the instrumentals with his voice and subject matter.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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