| Recorded in the bucolic wastes of the isle
of Inishbofin off the lrish coast, the second
LP from this Dublin four-piece, led by singer
Dave Couse, is emotionally stormtossed. I
Think I'm Going Mad, You'll Cry When I Die,
and Now That I'm Sick are tortured titles
with tricky lyrics, and the band all over
the place-at one moment slamming into punk
rock roots guitar or chiming softly like
The Smiths, then suddenly plucking wantonly
at antique madrigal instruments. In the midst
of it, Couse, who's taken up long forgotten
rustic vocal techniques like yodelling, limns
out in song his love agonies, like some doomed
Elizabethan poet. For sure, A House's loud
guitars, rural vocals, and twanging folksiness
are hard to pin down, but in a sea of bands
touched by U2 and Van Morrison, their sound
is their own. |
