US / THEM: Dublin, Ireland synth-punk trio No Spill Blood release EP debut on Sargent House

Click image above to watch video

Dublin, Ireland synth-punk trio No Spill Blood release their Street Meat debut EP digitally today (LP and CD on Sept 4th) via Sargent House. Stream the entire 6-song release HERE. Check out the high quality multi-camera live video of the band playing "No Retreat" HERE.

Ireland's vitalic rock scene has once again created musical alchemy in the form of No Spill Blood, a band formed from the much-loved, respected and established bands Adebisi Shank, Hands Up Who Wants To Die?, Elk and Magic Pockets.

Matt Hedigan (Hands Up Who Wants To Die?, Elk), Ruadhan O'Meara (Magic Pockets) and Lar Kaye (Adebisi Shank) took time out of their other bands to jam in Dublin in early 2011 after Matt had moved to the city from Cork. The trio's shared musical influences, the agile post-rock electronic punch of Trans Am, the playful noise of Devo and the low-down post-punk of the Melvins can be heard melded into No Spill Blood's spirited hurtling rhythms.

While their other musical projects contribute to the tempos, the tones and the textures of the music, No Spill Blood's sound is unequivocally their own. Repetitive Kraut-esque rhythms are goaded by O'Meara's buzzsaw vintage synthesizers, Kaye swaps his robotic guitar work in Adebisi Shank for incisively-charged drums and Hedigan provides the fuzzed-out low-end and beastly vocals. Or in their own words - “Heft, Heft, Synth, Heft, Heft”.

The lyrical subject matter on Street Meat is concerned with dark, recondite and toilsome subject matter -- coal mining. “The lyrics are loosely based on a story I wrote in school about a guy who reluctantly starts working in his local mine,” says Hedigan. “I'll leave the rest up to your imagination! It's fairly apocalyptic.”

Street Meat's six tracks were primarily recorded with Dek Hynes in a derelict office block running on a gasoline-powered generator. Mixing was done by Vinny McCreith (Adebisi Shank/The Vinny Club) and James Eager from The Hive mastered the EP. The EP's trippy artwork was done by Sonny Kay from post-hardcore group The VSS. “We just sent him a few images we liked, and he took elements from them, and came back with that awesome cover art. It's so striking, we are all crazy about it.”

And as for the name No Spill Blood? “It's an Oingo Boingo tune,” says O'Meara. “They got it from the [ H. G. Wells book] 'The Island of Dr. Moreau', the same place where Devo got 'Are We Not Men?' It seemed fitting...”

Street Meat will be released on LP and CD via Sargent House on September 4th, 2012.

NO SPILL BLOOD LIVE:

09/08 Dublin, IRE @ Button Factory