Alien She‘s debut studio album Feeler launched Friday, 24 November, to the double-fanfare of opening for Pussy Riot the night before the launch party. I was at the Pussy Riot gig where the local Dublin punk band were the first of two opening acts, and their sound and energy helped set the tone for a phenomenal evening. Growlingly political and atmospherically moody, I was thrilled to have discovered this trio and googled them on the bus home as I digested my evening.
Alien She are Katie O’Neill, Aoife Mairéad Nic Dhonncha and Darragh McCabe. ‘Death Sentence’ is a frenetic, agitated indictment of Irish abortion law — and an elegy to Savita Halappanavar. It served as the finale of their set and tied into the fiercely political punk energy of the evening. It’s a vividly feminist roar that contrasts with the frustration and apathy of ‘No Way Out’, which articulates the frustration of millennial malaise and poverty in Dublin.
Their guitars are fuzzy-rich and minor-key with a grungy, rich sound, contrasted with the exhilarating heart-beat of a driving drumbeat. O’Neill and Nic Dhonncha’s vocals move between a droning, punk monotone to growling and screaming over the ringing noise — they don’t sound pretty, they sound fierce. And damn, can they play.
All in all, the eight-track album has a very neo-Riot Grrrl sound that brought me back to the Nineties – fitting for a band named for a 1993 Bikini Kill song – and they really do evoke Kathleen Hana’s sound or similar bands like Jack Off Jill at their best. I look forward to hearing more from them and will be keeping my eye out for further gigs to attend as they come up, because their live energy is electric.
