Newbridge/Brussels six piece bring their post punk party home for the holidays, with support from local heartthrobs.

We're going out with a bang for 2026 by bringing our favourite post-punkers Silverbacks to Newbridge for a yuletide knees up, alongside local heroes reunited The Comstocks. Hard at work on their 4th LP, we might be in for some new tunes from the six-piece alongside jams from their vast repetoire of motorik bangers. Get on this!

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SILVERBACKS BIO:

As a band, Ireland six-piece Silverbacks are restless, eager to move onto the next thing: Three albums in four years is evidence of this. That their fizzing, rock-addled songs rarely pass the four-minute mark is further proof. But in their personal lives, they’re not restless. In fact, they’re settling down. Lead singer and guitarist Daniel O’Kelly now lives on the outskirts of Paris with his wife - it’s where he sees his immediate future too. His brother, guitarist Kilian, has moved to Drogheda, an hour north of Dublin, with wife and fellow Silverback Emma Hanlon, where they’ve discovered a newfound interest in plants (red hot pokers are their favourite). They’re content. Their relationships - their friendships - take the pressure off the music and ultimately allows for something that is more enjoyable to make, and perhaps, as a result, sounds more authentically like Silverbacks too. As they sing on the closing track of third album Easy Being a Winner: “You start to figure it out.”

Silverbacks figured some things out on their debut album Fad, released as the Covid pandemic had shut almost everything down in summer 2020. It was recorded sporadically across a number of short studio sessions. It’s an album, but also a collection of songs of their genesis as a band. The follow-up, Archive Material, was recorded and mixed while navigating the lockdowns. As a result, the way they had to record and produce it put the band under more pressure than they would have liked. So the plan for album number three was simple enough: Record with a much more relaxed schedule in mind. And they did. Silverbacks also welcomed a new member to the band during the recording process of Easy Being a Winner, Paul Leamy. He brought fresh energy, fresh ideas, and, as he played bass, it freed up a lot of room for Emma on vocals. It all allowed for more instrumentation and vocal layering between Daniel and Emma. The results are sumptuous, with gorgeous coos interweaving across ‘Giving Away an Inch Of’ and ‘Hide Away’. The chorus of the latter was lifted from one of their very first demos as a band; Emma always liked it, so they decided to revisit it. Such is the breezy confidence of a band on their third record together.

But Silverbacks didn’t simply sit back and go through the motions on Easy Being a Winner. The relaxed schedule allowed them to get some friends and family on the record. The spiky ‘Something I Know’ features clarinet parts performed by Daniel and Kilian’s dad, John. “We always wanted to get him on a Silverbacks record,” explains Daniel. “Kilian and I owe so much of our interest in music to him. Initially we had mapped out for him to play the backing melody in the verses, but we had the idea of trying long clarinet notes in the chorus. It ended up sounding so good we scrapped the parts (that my dad had spent hours rehearsing for) so that the big clarinet moments only happen in the choruses. Dad didn’t mind.” “Dad also recites a few words I had prepared for him at the end of the track. It’s a small poem I wrote called the ‘Desert’s Door’. My wife’s father passed away in 2022. He was from Algeria and spent a lot of his time at a place the locals call the door to the Sahara. My father and her father never got to meet unfortunately, so I like that we managed to connect them in some way.”

As with Fad and Archive Material, Silverbacks recorded Easy Being a Winner with Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) in Sonic Studios in Stoneybatter, Dublin. This time, though, they spent almost twice as long in the studio. What did that mean? Well, for example on the swelling, sweltering ‘No Rivers Around Here’, Daniels Fox and O’Kelly decided to go for lunch together, leaving Kilian in the studio alone, playing on a loop for about an hour straight. If it sounds cruel, it worked - he landed on a series of takes that Fox reversed and spliced together. Daniel O’Kelly is quick to praise his younger brother. “My favourite parts of the studio sessions are when we record Kilian on the guitar or piano. It’s a real joy just watching him play and effortlessly transpose the melodies in his head onto an instrument.”

Peadar Kearney is the other guitarist in Silverbacks and is key to defining the sound of the opening track and lead single off Easy Being a Winner, ‘Selling Shovels’. Getting guitar feedback like that heard in the bridges and outro is an art-form that Peadar has mastered. The band’s twin/triple-threat guitarmony runs through these

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