Oh Yeah! Dublin band Tenspeedracer’s debut CD on Boston’s Catapult Records brings me way back to the glory days Irish indie rock (as opposed to alternative rock – which isn’t). Ten years ago the Dublin “Music Head” walked tall with a confident swagger. Dublin’s U2 were the biggest band in the world, there was an estimated thousand bands gigging in and around Dublin, the sky was the limit for expectations for the cream of those bands (A House, An Emotional Fish and the Fatima Mansions).

Today the Dublin “Music Head” scratches his/her head and wonders how it all could have gone so horribly, horribly wrong. Sure U2 are still the biggest band in the world, but to most people these days Irish music is the disposable pap of boy bands such as Westlife or Boyzone.

Tenspeedracer’s “Eskimo Beach Boy” could be the CD that finally puts the spring back into the step of the Dublin “Music Head”. This is classic Irish indie rock – where ground zero is Iggy and the Stooges and the Velvet Underground with a nod in the direction of the Beatles and U2. Highly reminiscent of Irish bands such as My Blood Valentine, Rollerskate Skinny, Whipping Boy and early That Petrol Emotion and Scotland’s Jesus and Mary Chain, all buzz guitars, mellow vocals and dreamy 60’s pop.

The saviors of Irish rock? I hope so – if it’s not too late already.

October 2001