The Murder Capital have embraced the light and expanded their sound on their cathartic second album, Gigi's Recovery
The way The Murder Capital tell it, they’re no longer staring into the abyss. The band’s celebrated debut When I Have Fears (the title came from a poem by proto-Morrissey, John Keats) was a sometimes harrowing affair recorded after the suicide in early 2018 of their friend, poet, and musician Paul Curran.
It was a stark statement that rocketed the five-piece to the same level of their friends and contemporaries Fontaines D.C. with an almost frightening speed.
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When I Have Fears’ cavernous sound and New Wave attack hit No 2 in Ireland, reached a Top 20 chart position in the UK and featured in media end of year lists internationally, giving notice that Irish rock was back with a new generation of acts with a lot to say.
"We were blown away by the reaction," says the band’s articulate and quietly charismatic front man James McGovern. "Charting where we charted was all new to us. We were very much living in the moment of that. There was a sense of the surreal and it was exhilarating."
They may have to get used to it. Their second album, the cryptically titled Gigi’s Recovery, has already been greeted by hosannas by the critics and confirms that their debut was no fluke.
The new record crackles with a seductive energy, adding electronic touches, and delivering buoyant pop songs like Only Good Things, heroic poetry on The Stars Will Leave Their Stage and lovelorn tenderness on A Thousand Lives.
However, in sharp contrast to the soul-baring of their debut, Gigi’s Recovery took two years of recording and honest self-examination. "It was certainly challenging. It began with the challenges we set for ourselves creatively," says McGovern’s bandmate, guitarist Cathal Roper aka Pump.
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"How we were going to evolve as artists and whether we felt it at the time, we were very proud of what we had created on When I Have Fears and our honesty on that record.
"But making that first album was a very painful experience in lots of ways and grief is a process. We’d worked through a lot of those emotions touring that record. When we started making this record, we allowed ourselves time and space to react to all that. Gigi has a lot more colour and light in the music and in our thoughts."
Sitting in a Dublin hotel, McGovern (27) radiates confidence and 26-year-old Pump (a jokey nickname that stuck) chooses his words carefully as they dissect what recovery and hope means to them. They are not quite the serious gloomsters their music may suggest.
Quick to laugh as well as spin off on passionate rushes of conversation about the possibilities of art and music, The Murder Capital are here for the joy and the pain of rock `n’ roll.
Their swift rise has been extraordinary. Almost incredibly, When I Have Fears, was written and recorded within nine months of the band’s formation at Dublin music academy BIMM, the same spawning ground as Fontaines D.C.
They seemed to arrive fully formed after willing themselves into existence. The austerity of their music is borne out in a distinctive band image that mixes the bohemian with sharply suited and booted modernity. The Murder Capital also know the importance of an eye-catching promo video, even in this age of eye-blink attention spans.
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"It’s not something we can completely describe but we’re all into style as a vessel of communication", says McGovern.
"A band is a gang but there have been shows in our history where three of the band are looking like an actual band and the other two look like they don’t want to be there.
"I like the days when people are looking their best and feeling their coolest and it’s cohesive, that’s the coolest shit."
For McGovern, who namechecks TS Eliot, Fellini and Seamus Heaney as recent influences when pushed, his lyrics took on a new directness on Gigi’s Recovery.
"At the forefront of what I was hoping to achieve from the beginning was a demand for life coming out of a state of grief," he says. "These songs were formed from imagination, there’s an existential narrative throughout this album, bookended by songs that I hope shed that sense of control that comes from existential thought at times.
"I write all the lyrics in isolation," he adds. "Some of my favourites come from improvisation over a jam in the studio but the writing and the searching is mostly happily lonely work. Everything on this record is deeply autobiographical. It’s all me."
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Recent single Ethel certainly poses an interesting question about rejecting excess and settling into, if not down to, a more productive existence. The Murder Capital look and sound like a very serious proposition but they haven’t quite adopted the straight edge lifestyle.
"We’re not straight edge in the true sense of straight edge because that means no substances whatsoever," says James. "There are still people who drink alcohol in our band so we can’t say we’re straight edge."
Pump adds, "There is discipline in the band definitely. If we are going to be around each other, certain carry-on makes for a unhealthy environment."
"Creatively and in terms of relationships, there really isn’t room for that. There were times when it was time to play shows or to write and the excess took over," James adds. "Those days are behind us now. There is an air of professionalism in the camp."
A degree of sobriety is certainly needed for the band’s gigs. McGovern is a frontman who goes to extremes on stage and the band reach a hypnotic pitch of energy and ferocity as they locate moments of beauty amid the maelstrom. It is pure catharsis.
"We love touring. The shows are the most rewarding bit," says James. "It’s the unpredictability of the room. As long as we show up, it’s a given that we play to the best of our ability and we’re getting better at that.
"The unpredictability of distilling the memory of a song when we’re playing a show is so different then when we are recording. You grow into the song and project your life onto it and change it."
After a dark night of the soul, The Murder Capital are beginning to see the light again. However, one question remains - who is Gigi? "Gigi is the protagonist in the story of recovery for the listener to project their life upon," says McGovern. "The first album was about staring into the past whereas Gigi is about looking into the future . . . "
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
Gigi’s Recovery is out now. The Murder Capital play Vicar Street, Dublin on 26 February
