Entertainment/music reporter for @belfastlive and @dailymirrorni. DM me or email petermcgoran10@gmail.com / peter.mcgoran@belfastlive.co.uk
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Articles by Peter McGoran
New book celebrates life of Belfast music legend Bap Kennedy
A new biography, All the Dreams of a Boy, celebrates the life of late Belfast music artist, Bap Kennedy. The book was written by the singer-songwriter’s wife, Brenda, who officially launched it at a packed-out event at the Oh Yeah Centre, as part of the city’s 'Sound of Belfast' festival. The author was joined on the night by BBC Radio Ulster's Ralph McLean, who hosted an insightful - and at times emotional - Q&A about Bap's life.
Album Review: Arborist, Looking For Love
Looking For Love – the fourth album from Belfast-based Mark McCambridge – is his first release since bagging the 2023 NI Music Prize for his quietly poignant record, An Endless Sequence Of Dead Zeros. As with all of his albums, Looking For Love is defined by Arborist’s powerful voice, as well as his lush Americana-inspired arrangements.
Album Review: Fontaines D.C., Dopamine Chamber
If decades in music get defined by the prevailing artists of an era – The Beatles in the ’60s, Madonna in the ’80s – there’s a case to be made for Fontaines D.C. being the defining act of the Nervous ’20s. Five blisteringly good studio LPs in seven years is no small feat, but what makes the band so compelling is that each of their albums speaks to the present moment, in all its cold and chaotic dysfunction.
Album Review: Meryl Streek, Stories They Don’t Teach You At School
The surest measure of good punk music is how well an artist can channel the anger of their generation into song. On that metric, Meryl Streek has crafted some of the best punk records we’ve heard in decades. The Dublin artist’s latest sees him thwacking his chest at the Irish state – and how it has abandoned both the young and the working class. On single ‘Rotten Fruit’, he teams up with anarcho-punk legend Steve Ignorant to direct his ire at those responsible for the loss of hope.
Album Review: Paahto & The Bull, The 123
Named after the Dublin bus route that geographically connects the duo, The 123 is the first album from two of Ireland’s most renowned trad-folk musicians, Paahto (Patrick Cummins) and his counterpart The Bull (John Francis Flynn). Having played together in all manner of sessions and live settings for the guts of 15 years, it appears to have taken very little for the trad-chemistry of Paahto & The Bull to be replicated in the studio.
Album Review: Gilla band, Pugnello
Sometimes you just have to sit back and admire the audacity. Dublin post-punk/noise rock band Gilla Band are on album number four – and they have never sounded better than this.
Album Review: Rodrigo y Gabriela, OurHome
Irish fans have always understood the talents of Rodrigo y Gabriela, but it’s nonetheless exhilarating to be reminded of their sheer genius, more than two decades on from when they first began performing. The duo’s latest album, OurHome, came after a period of musical self-reflection, which took them both from their studio in Ixtapa to far-flung locations such as Melbourne and Japan. Indeed, the Japanese influence is everywhere on this album, not least on the its defining track, ‘Akatsuki’.
News - Gilbert O'Sullivan puts sixty years On The Record
Gilbert O'Sullivan puts sixty years On The Record Gilbert O'Sullivan - On The Record artwork Twenty-first studio album due 6 November on BMG - Growing Old Disgracefully leads, Andrea Corr guests, UK tour underway Story by Peter McGoran 29/08/2026 Gilbert O'Sullivan announces On The Record, his twenty-first studio album due 6 November via BMG, led by Growing Old Disgracefully and framed by his 60 Years in Music UK and Ireland tour.
Album Review: Julia Holter, Materia
American singer-songwriter Julia Holter has kept herself busy in recent times, gifting us three albums in a little over four years. Materia, her newest release, is a sort of companion to 2024’s career-best Something In The Room She Moves. The seven tracks have the same hallucinatory, ambient-meets-art-pop vibe Holter captured so perfectly on her previous record. However, there is at times less cohesion.
Album Review: Paddy Mulcahy, Improvisations on a CS10
When Limerick composer and synth artist Paddy Mulcahy was offered the use of a vintage Yamaha CS10 – which had been gathering dust for years in someone else’s garage – he could hardly refuse. Thus began Mulcahy’s experimentation with a piece of kit half-a-century old, one that he found himself falling in love with “no matter how many quirks it has, how rusty the screws are or how badly it smells when turned on.” Improvisations on a CS10 is the result of Mulcahy’s deft experimenting.
News - Krista Sher Selico's Big Beautiful Music takes opera off the pedestal
Krista Sher Selico's Big Beautiful Music takes opera off the pedestal Krista Sher Selico - press Debut EP of lyric soprano arias with full symphony - LA Eastwood sessions, Budapest extras Story by Peter McGoran 08/09/2026 Pop-classical soprano Krista Sher Selico releases debut EP Big Beautiful Music - five lyric arias recorded with full symphony in Los Angeles and Budapest. Intimate, cinematic takes aimed at listeners who thought opera wasn't for them.
Album Review: Alex Cameron, Late To Set
No other artist can do what Alex Cameron does. For the uninitiated, the Australian singer-songwriter became an underground internet sensation back in 2013, which led to the online release of his debut album, Jumping The Shark. Since then, he’s become a fringe favourite for his high-concept albums – records that tell the stories of sex workers, drug addicts, horny lovers and internet addicts, all from a position of zero judgement. Late To Set is a solid fifth album.
Album Review: Yard Act, You’re Gonna Need A Little Music
The post-punk phenomenon of the last decade has produced no shortage of seminal acts, not least Fontaines D.C. and Idles. But something about Yard Act has always made them especially visceral and compelling. ‘Empty Pledges’, the first song on the Leeds band’s third album, You’re Gonna Need A Little Music, shows just how raw and articulate they are.
Album Review: Goldbug, Swings & Roundabouts
Goldbug, whose real name is Danilo Ward, spent the first years of his life being raised in a religious commune in Provence, France. Now based in Dublin, he says that his music “draws inspiration from forgotten places and the creatures that inhabit them.” You get a visceral sense of this listening to Ward’s exquisite debut, Swings & Roundabouts, produced in collaboration with Chris Ryan (Robocobra Quartet, NewDad, Just Mustard).
Album Review: Jalen Ngonda, Doctrine Of Love
For many of his admirers, Jalen Ngonda’s artistic qualities are directly tied up with his age – they’re drawn to the fact that, as a 32-year-old in 2026, he boasts a vintage ‘60s soul croon. Whether there’s much more under the surface is open to debate. Ngonda’s songs closely follow a Motown/soul template, in the same way Greta Van Fleet strictly adhere to a ‘70s rock/Led Zeppelin playbook. If this is what you’re after, then Doctrine Of Love will certainly appeal.
Live Review: AVA Festival continues to be Belfast’s defining dance event
12 festivals on, it’s hard to believe there was a time when the start of summer didn't also herald an AVA weekender in Belfast. The festival has become synonymous with showcasing the very best in the city’s dance music scene, while also bringing over major international names. While the festival location has moved about over the years – from open playing fields to abandoned B&Q warehouses – it seems to have found a steady home on the Titanic Slipways.
Album Review: Bleachers, Everyone For Ten Minutes
If you listen closely, right now, you might be able to hear a music bro out there trying to impress a girl at a party, by telling her that the same guy produced all of the most acclaimed albums by Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter. Jack Antonoff has been a busy man over the past 10 years, with the effect that his role as a producer-for-the-megastars has somewhat overshadowed his job as frontman with rock outfit Bleachers.
Album Review: Aldous Harding, Train On The Island
What makes Aldous Harding such a consummate indie-folk artist is that she draws you into her music with only a few light touches. The roiling, repeating percussion, added with the little synth-y riff at the start of ‘I Ate The Most’, is all it takes to build the world of the artist’s fifth album, Train On The Island. Additionally, the album’s opening line, “I’m not afraid, like you’re not gay,” is deliciously succinct in its drama.
News - Pete Fij flips the script on Up's The New Down
Pete Fij flips the script on Up's The New Down Pete Fij - Up's The New Down artwork Adorable frontman's debut solo album trades long winter melancholy for fuzzed dream-pop and kitchen disco Story by Peter McGoran 05/09/2026 Pete Fij releases debut solo album Up's The New Down on 25 September via Tip Top Recordings, led by single Wake Up Honey. Pete Fij - single artwork After the care home shifts, the funeral celebrations and the break-up ballads, Pete Fij has turned the lights up.
Album Review: Noah Kahan, The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs
Noah Kahan gained mainstream success after the release of his third album, Stick Season, whose songs were playlisted everywhere in the summer of 2023, leading to Kahan touring globally and collaborating with the likes of Hozier and Sam Fender. The Great Divide is a worthy follow-up from an artist who is clearly trying to straddle the line between pop phenomenon and rootsy folk crooner.
Album Review: KNEECAP, FENIAN
KNEECAP's past 18 months have given them more ammunition for making powerful rap music than perhaps any other hip-hop artist in recent history. It stood to reason, then, that FENIAN was always going to be a great album. The record comes less than two years after the release of Fine Art, during which time the trio received global attention for their unwavering stance on Palestine, and Mo Chara was forced to stand trial in the UK on trumped-up terrorism charges.
Album Review: Julia Cumming, Julia
Julia Cumming has had a very successful career as the bassist and lead vocalist of psychedelic indie-rockers Sunflower Bean. Julia, her solo debut, came about after decamping to LA, where she worked with producer Brian Robert Jones. Cumming called the period of writing a “second artistic puberty” and, indeed, there’s a teenage confessionalism about the 11 songs that makes them wonderfully raw.
Album Review: TOMORA, COME CLOSER
COME CLOSER marks a collaboration between the Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and Norwegian electro-pop singer Aurora, and the fusion makes a lot of sense. It has long been apparent that the latter’s ethereal Nordic vocals provide the perfect counterweight to thwacking dance beats (MK’s remix of her single ‘I Went Too Far’ is an earworm if ever there was one). With that in mind, COME CLOSER starts very strongly.
Album Review: Arlo Parks, Ambiguous Desire
Arlo Parks has had no shortage of accolades in recent years. The London artist’s debut album, Collapsed In Sunbeams, won the Mercury Prize and secured Best British Solo Female Artist Award at the Brits in 2021. Ambiguous Desire, Parks’ third release, is her best yet. Produced by Baird, the album is inspired by the queer hedonism of NYC’s Paradise Garage and by British acts like The Streets and Burial. It sounds like Parks at her most wilful, but also her most vulnerable.
Album Review: Kanye West, Bully
Culturally, Kanye West has brought us into uncharted territory in the last few years. No other artist could’ve embraced the far-right, rubbed shoulders with Nazis, released a song praising Hitler, and still maintained even a shred of global cultural relevance. But Kanye West’s main problem this last decade (well, his main problem after all the problems listed above) is that his music hasn’t been very good. Not since 2016’s The Life of Pablo has he sounded like he’s had anything interesting to say.
Album Review: Kim Gordon, Play Me
Ex-Sonic Youth vocalist Kim Gordon has had a productive few years, with her new album arriving hot on the heels of 2022’s At Issue and 2024’s The Collective. On Play Me, Gordon has again collaborated with Justin Raisen, who has worked with the likes of like Charli XCX and Sky Ferreira. The result is an album that, much like its immediate predecessor, embraces hip-hop and industrial production.
Album Review: James Blake, Trying Times
James Blake’s latest album is the first to be released on his independent label, Good Boy Records. From that, you might’ve expected the London post-dubstep experimenter to go more leftfield in his approach. But, perhaps wisely, Blake treads a well-worn path with these 13 tracks. Trying Times offers listeners more of Blake’s characteristically sparse-yet-grand arrangements, with his vocals sounding as sumptuous as ever.
Album Review: Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Irreversible
If someone introduced you to Brigitte Calls Me Baby, showed you their album cover, spun their record, and then informed you they were a lost band from the new wave era, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Such is the debt that the Chicago group owes to the ’80s bands who’ve inspired them, such as Echo & The Bunnymen and The Cure.
Live Report: The Mary Wallopers set Belfast reeling!
The Mary Wallopers' pre-Christmas concert is becoming something of an annual tradition in Belfast. It’s easy to see why. Their fanbase in the city is fervent, and being at one of their gigs feels like the most joyous and cathartic way to welcome in the silly season. They took ot the stage after an excellent opening set from fellow Louth outfit, Just Mustard. The Wallopers have a commanding presence.
Album Review: Keaton Henson, Parader | Hotpress
It is always a reward stepping into Keaton Henson’s world and letting him get under your skin. The English singer-songwriter – who with Parader is now onto his ninth album – has been keeping the introspective folk-acoustic flame alive, when it seems to have all but faded elsewhere. On Parader, he reminds you how consistently strong he is at what he does; each song brings you in so close that you sink into his music.
Album Review: Huartan, Huartan | Hotpress
Excitement had been building about Huartan’s debut album for some time. The Belfast-based tradtronica group already boast a formidable following thanks to their utterly unique live performances (think: the visual immersion of Fever Ray, mixed with pagan Irish iconography and a laser-focused political bent). Their word-of-mouth reputation has often gone before the music. This, of course, can be dangerous for emerging artists.
Album Review: Gareth Quinn Redmond, Múscailte | Hotpress
Múscailte, the latest album from Gareth Quinn Redmond, one of Ireland’s most prolific musicians, is a masterful work. The album title translates as ‘Awakened’, and the album itself seems to compel us toward that half-dreaming, half-awakened state we find ourselves in each morning. The first track, ‘Tae na Maidne’. is an illuminating example of restraint; throughout its nine minutes, you find yourself actively listening to the spaces in between the sparse notes.
Album Review: Khalid, after the sun goes down | Hotpress
The songs on Khalid’s fifth album were written in and around the time the American R&B artist – an international star since the release of the lo-fi ‘Location’ in 2016 – was outed as gay on social media by an ex. The album, said Khalid, was an attempt to take his agency back and express himself freely. More power to him. after the sun goes down sees Khalid working alongside a big team of producers and co-writers, helmed by Ilya Salmanzadeh (who has worked extensively with Ariana Grande).
Album Review: Daniel Avery, Tremor | Hotpress
Plenty of musicians talk about Daniel Avery’s music in reverential terms, and with good reason. The English producer and songwriter has an original style that manages to bridge the gap between My Bloody Valentine-inspired shoegaze and more pulsating electronic music. Tremor is a strong, urgent record. Across the 13 songs, Avery teams up with various frontmen and women, among them The Kills’ Alison Mosshart, yuné pinku, Rival Schools’ Walter Schreifels, and NewDad’s Julie Dawson.
Album Review: Jeff Tweedy, Twilight Override | Hotpress
In sharing the news about his decision to release Twilight Override as a triple-album, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy stated that he’d been making so much music recently because, in a world of destruction and “a bottomless basket of rock bottom,” he wanted to align himself with the art of creation. It’s a noble pursuit. However, it feels like releasing 30 songs in one go was a big risk, with little reward for anyone who isn’t a diehard Jeff Tweedy fan.
Album Review: God Knows, A Future Of The Past | Hotpress
If you can believe it, it’s nearly a decade since Rusangano Family won the Choice Prize with their influential debut album, Let The Dead Bury The Dead. While the Limerick trio never released a follow-up, they’ve each, separately, had a major influence on the evolution of Irish rap. Now, after years of behind-the-scenes work, God Knows is finally releasing his debut - and it’s every bit as good as you might expect.
Album Review: pôt-pot, Warsaw 480km | Hotpress
Following last year’s Going Insane EP, pôt-pot's first album is an intense and often brilliant offering. The band is made up of members from both Ireland and Portugal, with frontman Mark Waldron-Hyden writing most of the songs while “not really living in one place.” A sense of transience and impermanence permeates the music on Warsaw 480km.
Album Review: Ed Sheeran, Play | Hotpress
Towards the end of ‘Opening’, the first song on Ed Sheeran’s new album, he sing-raps: “When your career's in a risky place / Everything seems like a big mistake / I’m still lookin' for shit to say / Deludin' myself that they'll still relate.” It’s probably dramatic for Sheeran to say his career is in a “risky place”, but you can see how the pop-rocker might feel worried he’s got nothing to say, after being heavily playlisted on virtually every streaming service and radio station.
Album Review: Josh Ritter, I Believe In You, My Honeydew | Hotpress
Josh Ritter’s 13th album, and his third in as many years, finds the 48-year-old artist reassessing his relationship with his ‘Muse’, which he once believed had “passed on… with the decades”. For his latest batch of songs, he addresses the Muse directly – naming it ‘My Honeydew’ – rather than waiting for it to provide divine inspiration. The result is a sweet, gentle album, where the songs are conjured from quiet and meditative places, and where Ritter’s songwriting never seems rushed.
Live Report: Fontaines DC and Kneecap put on major Belfast performance made up of righteousness and resistance
There isn’t a spare ticket to be found at Belfast’s Boucher Road Playing Fields as Kneecap and Fontaines D.C prepared to take to the stage for a gig where either act would’ve comfortably ranked as headliners. On this occasion, Kneecap are on stage first, where a hometown audience greets them, and the rain holds off enough for the sun to peek out from over the West Belfast mountains (no distance from where Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap were brought up).
Live Review: At Belfast Vital, Sam Fender proves why he’s one of rock’s most important voices
Fender’s gig was preceded by Irish hometown hero CMAT, who had plenty of reason to celebrate, considering the gig coincided with the realise of her third album, EURO-COUNTRY. She comes out bedecked in a long, flowing Daniel O’Donnell vest and launches into the smouldering ‘Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’, from her new album. It tees the crowd up for a set mostly made up of recent songs.
Album Review: Woody Guthrie, Woody At Home, Vols. 1 & 2 | Hotpress
A Complete Unknown did one thing besides showing us that Timothée Chalamet does a decent impression of Bob Dylan; it also led to renewed interest in folk singer Woody Guthrie. Woody At Home – a 22-track collection of songs recorded at home on Guthrie’s reel-to-reel – feels like a deliberate attempt to capitalise on the film’s success. Recorded from 1951-52, the songs here are raw enough that you can hear doors opening and the singer’s children roaming the house.
Album Review: For Those I Love, Carving The Stone | Hotpress
After receiving universal acclaim for his self-titled debut album, Dublin producer and songwriter David Balfe took time to think about what he wanted next from his work. While his first LP was abrasively personal, Carving The Stone casts a wider net, with the artist examining the effects that a broken political system has on Irish working-class communities.
Album Review: Loyle Carner, hopefully ! | Hotpress
For any number of reasons, hope feels like gold dust in today’s world. But on Loyle Carner’s fourth album, there’s an abundance of the stuff. Carner rose to fame following the release of 2017’s Yesterday’s Gone, and he has pretty much set the standard for British hip-hop ever since (2022’s Hugo was a stand-out).
Album Review: Little Simz, Lotus | Hotpress
With her most recent albums, 2021’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and 2022’s No Thank You, receiving widespread acclaim and topping several Best Album of the Year lists, British rapper Little Simz certainly has a high bar to meet with album number five. But a quick listen to Lotus will leave you with little doubt just how inventive she continues to be. Across 13 songs, Little Simz takes us deep into her evolution.
Album Review: Tune Yards, Better Dreaming | Hotpress
“We’re in an age of interruption,” said Merrill Garbus, speaking about some of the themes on Tune-Yards’ new LP, Better Dreaming. “Making art in this day and age… is a battle for focus.” For both Garbus and fellow band member/husband Nate Brenner, you get the feeling there’s a lot that could swing them off course. The duo – who specialise in understated alt-rock not a million miles from Radiohead – have been more vocal than most when it comes to geopolitical issues.
Album Review: Ezra Furman, Goodbye Small Head | Hotpress
The material on Ezra Furman’s latest album came about after the artist began “haemorrhaging songs” following an unexplained illness in early 2023. The songs are explicitly about the act – and the art – of losing control. They move from psych-rock to art-pop to bossa nova to blues, all while Ezra tries to wrestle with a fragile mental state.
Album Review: Car Seat Headrest, The Scholars | Hotpress
The Scholars is Car Seat Headrest’s 13th album – and perhaps their most ambitious yet. It’s billed as a “bold new rock opera… a new chapter for the premier standard bearers of young internet rockers.” The concept is that the nine songs loosely follow the lives, hopes and dreams of the faculty and students at a fictional college, Parnassus University (the ‘scholars’ that give the album its title).
Album Review: Tara Nome Doyle, Ekko | Hotpress
Berlin-based artist Tara Nome Doyle took her listeners to interesting places on her two previous albums. 2020’s Alchemy followed the four phases of alchemical transformation, while 2022’s Vaermindealt with the Jungian psychological concepts of persona and shadow.
Album Review: Paddy Hanna, Oylegate | Hotpress
Paddy Hanna’s fifth album, Oylegate, came into existence after the artist pushed through a period of doubt and “embraced the strange beauty of uncertainty”. It’s notable that uncertainty has always lain at the heart of Hanna’s music. The Dublin-based baroque-pop songwriter has kept listeners on their toes with each new LP release, offering us something markedly different every time he’s come out of the studio.
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