Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m biased. In a lock-in, in a bar on an island, I was once witness to The Gold Standard’s Muireann stunning the whole raucous place into silence with her amazing voice, and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
Cork band The Gold Standard are Patrick, Dom, Muireann and Steve. They play lush, harmony-laden guitar pop, quilted together from all the loveliest musical bits and pieces - “contemporary indie rock on both sides of the Atlantic, late seventies post-punk, the melodramatic excesses of the eighties and the occasional snippet of fuzzed-out shoegaze” … Oh gosh, doesn’t that intro just make you want to kick up your heels to match the buzz in your tummy? Ah, it does.
The group have just completed a nationwide tour supporting Ham Sandwich, inspiring Podge Sandwich to describe them as “scary musicians”. I have to assume he means scarily talented, because this here double A-side is a great big pop dreamboat. Riding A Wave/You People are two songs earmarked for LP#1, the sessions for which are ongoing. To which I say, Mighty! You can download both - FOR FREE - from Bandcamp.
You Dubs can catch The Gold Standard on March 25th at The Sweeney Mongrel, Dame St. with Zealots and Swords. Scoot along, do, because if I had a hat I’d stake it on these guys being The Ones To Watch. Theirs is a sound I’m genuinely excited by.
What d’you mean, why don’t I have a hat? It’s coz I get terrible hat hair, alright?
