Album Review | Bleeding Heart Pigeons | 'Stir'

Bleeding Heart Pigeons evoke the foreboding, twisted indie of Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen and Radiohead, on a record that delivers on the promise of their debut and intensifies the emotion.

In 2016, Bleeding Heart Pigeons were a major label act, signed to Virgin Records and promised the world. In the turbulent landscape of 2020, now independent, they sound more assured than ever before. 'Stir' is quite simply an album of dark textured brilliance and new found confidence. Take 'Dig a Hole, and Then Fill It in Again', which takes Phil Spector's wall of sound and gives it a post-punk shake down, leaving you yearning for a life you've left behind. "We used to be untouchable, when did it all go wrong?" sings frontman Mícheál Keating.

Scattered across 'Stir' are twinkling, rain drop synth patterns and the wash of reverb soaked guitars, adding to the grandeur, exacerbating the fever dream. Opener 'Bubble Boy' has the feel of a cross country, night-time drive, streetlights racing past your window, fading to trees the further out you allow Bleeding Heart Pigeons to carry you. The drum sounds are magnetic, gluing the tunes together, driving the machine.

This record gives you mixed signals. Are these songs triumphant, or devastatingly lonely? 'All For The Best' tips its cap to the latter, but can't help but allow itself to trust again.

"Been in the dumps for over a year now, and I've been trying but I can't see a way out...you know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'll believe you if you tell me that it's all for the best"

Elsewhere, tracks like 'Real Connection' swim in melody, intelligent and sharp. The Prefab Sprout influenced 'I Don't Love You Anymore' pans the camera from Keating to an ex-lover, casting the spotlight away under haunting falsetto reaches. It's an empowering release, the clearest indication of how much the band are enjoying their sweeping new sound. 'EZ Love' captures some of debut album 'Is''s more experimental mindset, but on the whole 'Stir' has its own headspace, and it's a much kinder place to be in. Or at least one where they've been able to process the events of the last 4 years.

Bleeding Heart Pigeons hold the best for last, with the drone of 'Spiritual Union' and 'Good Dogs Never Die' hitting back to back. This is the parting of clouds to let the sun back in. Mike Skinner finding his £1000 in 'A Grand Don't Come For Free'. It's thematically essential, the cinematic pinnacle that throughout 'Stir' you are hoping for.

It makes for a beautifully dark record. Haunted and perseverant. Limerick may be the hip-hop capital of Ireland right now, but its native pigeons are alive and thriving.

Taylor Johnson