Mention the name A-house to most of those involved in the Dublin music scene and the chances are that you will be greeted with a baleful stare, and hear a comment more than likely not fit for publication in a family newspaper. A-House have got the name of being awkward buggers, difficult to interview in the sense that they will make a fool of an ill-prepared writer and aloof in the sense that they will refuse to mix with their contempories. Allied to the fact that they have sung about "stupid poxy journalists sitting on my shoulder", you can understand why they aren't on many Christmas card lists.

A-House are well aware of this and find it all rather amusing, in a desert of smug, self-satisfied bands and pint-swilling hacks, they view themselves as an oasis of sense...a thorn in the side of many people...the Eamon Dunphy of music. Luckily for A-House, their contempories don't really matter. What does matter is that they fill every venue they play and have built up a large and dedicated following with little or no help from anybody. Next week sees the release of the first single from their second album. Both are called 'I Want Too Much', with the old crowd favourite 'I Think I'm Going Mad' sharing the A-Side on the seven-inch.

The new material will unsettle a lot of people. Greed, despair and loneliness form the basis for the album, but despite the rather depressing subject matter they are not angst-ridden young men with a Joy Division complex. The music is anything but broody, the soaring guitars and scatter-bomb drums that have become their trade mark are still very much in evidence and Couse's voice has an added range and strength that was previously lacking.

The new album is a brave step. It would have been a lot easier to write fourteen versions of 'Call Me Blue' and sit back while the royalties rollin but, industrious lads that they are they wrote fifty songs, hid themselves in Inishboffin and, with the able hand of ace producer Mike Hedges at the helm, recorded an album that should launch them on to the world stage proper.

"We realise that it is a big risk to do an album like this," says frontman Dave Couse. "Most of the songs are very intense and not instantly accessible. They are certainly not designed for radio play, which is a problem but they are songs that we wanted to release and while it takes time to become familiar with some of them, they are, by and large, a lot stronger than those off the first one."

Radio play will indeed be a problem if the Larry Gogan incident is anything to go by. Dave takes up the story : "Because the single is a double A-Side there can be confusion about what to play. Rather than play 'I Think I'm Going Mad', Larry played 'I Want Too Much', which is , a rather manic, loud song. He got the fright of his life when he heard it and rang up our press officer and asked him had he been given the wrong song."

"He said that it wasn't exactly suited to daytime radio and he's right. The other side is much easier to listen to and that's the one we will shoot the video for."

The right decision? Buy the single on Monday week and decide for yourself.