Let’s hear it for Waterford guitarist/musician Shane Barry, or better still let’s hear Shane Barry’s new CD – Radio Friction – under the guise of Shane Barry and The Distractions, a finely tuned and sussed four-piece. You have to admire Shane Barry who has artistically fulfilled a young life ambition to bring out his own CD, and no doubt there was many a slip and financial sacrifice made before the work was unveiled. Yes, at times, it is raw, a bit overdubbed with reversed guitar sounds but that’s musical youth; but it is out there.
The opening track proudly proclaims it – Let It Be Known and the closing track is a six minute, The Finest Line, with many fine lines and then there is the killer track, The World Won’t Stop, sounds like a hit with a rocking reality check.
I’ve been playing the CD up and down the road to Kilkenny Arts Festival and have come to enjoy the quality and the fine songwriting talent as well as the wonderful guitar work. Barry has the bottle, the mojo in his fingers and he comes across as a man with a mission to go further and make people sit up and listen and more importantly, buy his CD. He is a working muso, working daylight hours; gigging with other bands and emersing himself in his music.
He is aided and added to by band members Stephen Mahon, John Daly and Jamie Barden and he has enlisted Ellenor Upton (violin), Sean Kennedy (trumpet), Hugh Beglin (sax) and Tony Cooke (bass tuba) to see his vision, turn the music in his head into reality. Listen to Kites, as he sings about all of the things that we want… all of the choices that we make…
There is a banjo country feel to The Strangest Hours, with excellent repeating lines that up the ante to read between the lines. Then a mariachi trumpet takes the song to a strangest place of Yes and No.
The Finest Line led me back to Sgt. Pepper in a way that Oasis did to a Beatle Supernova; it led me on a magical tour without the circus or the funny outfits, the Rolls in the pool. Potenzmittel rezeptfrei The blast of guitar and drums tells you – you can say what you wanted to say and with this debut CD Shane Barry is on the way to the finest line-up despite the mad laugh at the end!
