Even before you’ve heard a note of Gurriers’ latest album, you know they’re telling the truth. Nobody’s Coming to Save You is a matter-of-fact release from the Dublin-based band, whose sound has grown leaps and bounds since their debut. Gurriers make it clear that their title track is true. Not just for them, or for the listener, but as a general sentiment applying to the world around them. Impressive wordplay and an instrumental riff a step beyond the rest of the Dublin music scene, Gurriers present themselves as the best in show with Nobody’s Coming to Save You. Erratic, borderline paranoid, but stuffed full of truth and fear for what’s becoming of the world around them. It’ll settle well considering the horrors around us. Electric guitar bliss. When people say guitar music is dead, it’s because they’re unwilling to step out of their comfort zone. Push someone into Nobody’s Coming to Save You, and they’ll come out the other side with a whole new appreciation for the genre, and for Gurriers.
Socially conscious writing should be no surprise from any band, let alone one as ambitious and articulate as Gurriers. Party Lines opens with the riches of the third world and sways into violence, somewhat inevitably, with a gruesome yet brilliant through line holding the song together. Both the title track and Party Lines, with their heavy message and heavier instrumental style, are rallying cries that’ll unite an audience. That’s partly the aim of this Gurriers album, and it works. Finance, fame, and futureproofing yourself are what grip the core of Nobody’s Coming to Save You. Ambitious work on Shades gives the band that punchy, punk-adjacent track that’ll no doubt have a crowd throwing themselves around. But listen in a little closer and you hear that nuanced takedown of the world around us. There’s a sense of that to a lot of music releasing at the time, almost as if those coming up in the industry have been under the boot alongside us, but have rolled out of the way in time and are now trying to stop the boot from coming down. But that’s a lot of pressure on musicians.
Gurriers take to it naturally with some charmed and insightful work. Pins is a fantastic indication of where the band find themselves, playing with “the cats [that] control my goal” and trying to make sense in the face of such a broad futility. This isn’t just a socially conscious effort from Gurriers, it also sounds phenomenal. Instrumentally jagged, the brutality of their message matched by the atmosphere they create. Percussion plays a massive part in that on Today is Not Enough, hammering the song into life. A beautiful piece of work by Gurriers there, and what follows maintains that ridiculously high standard. Cynical lyricism? Not quite. These are days where the cynic is the person you put confidence in. To be a cynic is to care and Gurriers, by that metric, care deeply. But they care too for a danceable quality to their work and nail it on the likes of Shades and Nothing Happens Twice. They’re a unique talent, Gurriers, who manage to avoid any comparison to their Dublin-born contemporaries.
They do this through tough musicianship and a tougher line against the world around them. Gurriers manage to stave off any sense of sentimentality until the penultimate song, I Wish I Was. A heartbreaker in the making, just let it linger. But it’s a heartbreaker in the traditional sense, of how we perceive the slower sway of a bass-led track, rather than the fury, the lashing out against the world heard before it. Often, our brains are wired through a pop sentimentality. We can’t escape that. Go to any supermarket and you’ll hear some rot of the week. But a band like Gurriers are a rare beast; their feet are firmly planted, and their work on Nobody’s Coming to Save You has a charm and energy to it that’ll pull people back into a state of caring. Caring for what they do, how they listen, when they do so and why they engage. It’s a massive moment for Gurriers, but it’s a massive moment for those who listen in and feel their voice heard, too.
Discover more from Cult Following
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
