TONY CLAYTON-LEA casts his eye over the Irish music acts to look out for in 2025...
Adore
‘The perfect trifecta’ is how Adore pitch themselves, and when you hear cracking pop/punk songs such as Supermum!, Can We Talk, and Postcards, you know it’s the truth (or something very close to it). Fronted by Lara Minchin (guitar/vocals) and with Lachlann Ó Fionnáin (bass/vocals) and Naoise Jordan Cavanagh (drums), Adore have been making proverbial waves since they formed about two years ago. There’s no sign of that unrelenting movement disappearing or stopping, either. “We’re gonna save rock and roll”, states the band’s Instagram, and judging by how much the band’s music has been taken to heart by people over the past 18 months, that’s also the truth (or something very close to it).
Ahmed, With Love (Pic: Adam Kelleher)Ahmed, With Love
Over the past ten years, Ireland has been an important breeding ground for hip-hop – just think what the musical landscape would be like if it wasn’t for the likes of Kojaque, Lethal Dialect, MangoXMathman, Denise Chaila, Rebel Phoenix, Nealo, and Curtisy. Into the mix comes Dublin-born, Sierra Leonean rapper Ahmed, With Love, who has been releasing music that zings with wit, warmth, and the kind of intuitive, fluid delivery that we haven’t heard from Irish hip-hop for some time. If you ever want proof of that, then check out his 2024 mixtape, Comma, Fullstop, which brims with energy and wisdom.
Baba
In the summer of 2023, Baba (aka Siobhán Lynch) released the deeply personal song, Truth. It is, as the title directly implies, a reckoning of self-awareness, self-acceptance, strength of character and how engaging honestly with yourself is, in many ways, a route to discovery. That song was followed in February of this year with the song Apollo, another confessional that touched on themes of loss, heartache, and hope (the song was written after Lynch miscarried in 2023). That Lynch can express such profound experiences and align them with intelligent pop songs that bounce on your head and burrow down into your soul is no small thing. More music will be released in 2025, but in the meantime, pop over to Spotify and fill your boots.
Alice KiernanAlice Kiernan
Meath-based Alice Kiernan might not be considered a bright and sparky newbie (she’s 28), but it is only in the past year or so that she has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Kiernan has been releasing music since 2018, but amid the social limitations of Covid she migrated to social media platforms such as TikTok, where her music (and poetry) collected listens and views in the millions. Last year’s single, Slowly Sinking into You, and her two 2024 tracks, Jealous and 100 Days, presented the kind of creative maturity she had been edging towards on earlier songs. If you like the current crop of US singers such as Tate McRae, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, and Olivia Rodrigo, then Kiernan’s mix of confession and character will make you even happier.
Annika KilkennyAnnika Kilkenny
Annika Kilkenny will take you by surprise. Born and raised in, yes, Kilkenny (although we doubt the city she is from is her real surname), she started in music playing classical piano but gradually drifted towards acoustic guitar and the kind of indie pop/folk music that you should hear all day on the radio but don’t. In other words, her music (which she describes as a “warm and cosy sonic fusion – very September to December vibes”) is the right side of twee, but come back if that word scares you. Songs such as her debut single, Look Mom I Made It, The Middle, and her latest release, Boots for Hiking, showcase a songwriting talent that can only blossom. Lend an ear.
Pebbledash
Taking a few leaves out of books beloved by the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Just Mustard, Cork six-piece shoegaze band Pebbledash fuse elements of jagged, dreamy pop music and white light/white heat surges of drone/noise. In lesser hands, such a mixture might have you running for the hills, but the Pebbledash people have a way with song structure and presentation that draws in the listener (even if their self-description of “external wall coating enthusiasts playing noisy banshee cowboy rock’n’roll” might have you thinking otherwise). Following the band’s impressive double single Killer Lover/Carraig Aonair (which takes genre blending one step further by introducing aspects of traditional Irish music to the chaos), January sees the release of their debut EP.
Ramper (Pic: Charlie Joe Doherty)Ramper
Donegal native Declan McClafferty has previous form in the Irish music scene as a member of In Their Thousands, a band he co-founded with his brother (Aidan) about 13 years ago. That was then, and this is now: McClafferty is a solo artist with some of the best alt.folk/pop songs we’ve heard in some time. Throughout songs such as If You Want a Good Dream, Promised, Pale as the Moon, and Kept a Curl, there are hints of Fountains of Wayne, Fleet Foxes, Elliot Smith, and a few others, but the overall sense is of an artist very much in harmony with their own voice. Indeed, McClafferty’s songs are reminders that not everything has to be slick, technologically amazing, or auto-tuned out of recognition.
Shark School
This female-fronted Galway-based rock/pop act features Nora Staunton (guitar/vocals), Peggy Ford (bass) and Cathal Curran (drums). They describe themselves as an “abstract garage band”, which, frankly, doesn’t do them any favours, yet in the space of a mere 15 months, they have inveigled their way into the heads of music lovers with songs that operate outside clichéd norms. So far, there are two tracks on offer – Choose Life, and 411, each of which push and shove with signature punk rock mindsets. Where the band’s strengths really lay, however, are in the live domain. So far, so vibrant? You could say that – just ask anyone who has seen them support Irish acts such as NewDad and The Love Buzz, and anyone who saw them creating (in their own words) “a ruckus at Ireland Music Week by having more shoes on the ceiling than the floor.”
Tayne (Pic: Einvind Hansen)Tayne
Tayne frontman Matt Sutton is a smart one. The Dublin-born singer and songwriter says he has “a habit of reusing older samples to create new songs, I feel it helps maintain a consistent sound and style to the band.” Tayne have been around for over six years, but as with many music acts, the pandemic put a halt to their step. Now out of the fog, Sutton and friends are looking forward to releasing their debut album, Love (in early 2025), and reclaiming lost time. In the meantime, their latest track, Fear, is as good as battened-down rock music can get.
VelouriasVelourias
If you want to have the cobwebs blown away, listen to Dublin alt.rock, post-punk, indie, and hardcore trio Velourias. Phil (guitar/vocals), Rob (bass/vocals), and Nick (drums) know how to make a crash-bang-wallop with influences that include Pixies, Manic Street Preachers, and Joy Division. According to Rob, the band’s songs are “laced with angular guitar parts and semi-surrealist lyrics. We sing about slightly off-kilter subjects and tend to steer clear of the usual stuff you might hear on the radio”. In other words, unless you’re a very late-night owl, you won’t hear the likes of new song Taxidermist and older tracks like A Forest of Lungs, Old Age Home Lament, and We Float Down Rivers.
