Misneach

Tau & the Drones of Praise are led by Seán Mulrooney, and misneach is an old Irish and Scottish Gaelic word for ‘courage’ or ‘bravery.’ On the band’s third album, recorded in Berlin, and with guest turns by Tindersticks, Clannad and Irish troubadour Damien Dempsey, the soundscape reverberates with clashing atmospheric conditions – drone rock, traditional Irish folk, sacred world music and a psych-glam rock with some stompingly good riffs and choruses. A wild imagination is on the loose throughout the lyrics, which take in the Kali Yuga on ‘The Sixth Son’ and its end-times poetry that could easily comprise press clippings from the past year or so, or the wild piping, strumming and whistles of ‘Ceol Ón Chré’ (‘I hear the sound of the ancient ones’) that hits like an ergot rush at a medieval rave.

Misneach is an out-there set, Tau & the Drones of Praise’s lyrics are packed with nature imagery of a strong spiritual bent; and the songs are propulsive and singalong, their big choruses raised like sails over the imagistic verses, whose lines churn and turn like patterns in a kaleidoscope. But they’re also grounded in the dystopias of our current news cycle, making it more of a call to arms than a call to escape, even if it does end with the prayer-like ‘Hope’.