Galway noise trio land a killer blow with their third single
Track: Billy?
Band: Punching Peaches
Released: October 29 2021
There are two versions of Billy? The radio edit and then the version on Spotify which has an extra 30 seconds of the band going nuts in the studio. Why? Because Naoise had just nailed a complete take of the fiendishly complex and ferociously fast drum part. His precise, pacy pummelling, reminiscent of Stephen Morris, drives this brilliantly exuberant track to its celebratory conclusion.
His take on it - 'so I was just kinda messing around with drum parts on my own, this kind of fast 80s post-punk inspired drum pattern. Very inspired by Joy Division and New Order, particularly with that fast high hat rhythm that I do.'
Our take on it - fucking phenomenal.
Billy? is like the hyperactive love child of first single Wristwitch (slower, more psychedelic) and second single Maggots (straight up punk). It starts with those drums before a guitar attack worthy of Andy Gill or Wilko Johnson joins the fray. Stabbing, staccato and spraying rhythmic shards stripped bare of all nuances of flash or frippery. This is music for the aesthete, laying bare the framework of the music. Yet the beauty of this approach is that it creates space for the bass to deliver a groove.
What makes this track even better is that it maintains energy and interest right to the end while largely eschewing the traditional verse/chorus/middle eight format. The delayed and phased vocals and then the repeated, shouted Billy refrain later in the track are typical of the clever production touches they employ.
These are sober reflections however and likely irrelevant as this track swaggers out of the speakers in a live setting. Dive in and lose yourself in the whirlwind world of Punching Peaches and Billy?
Listen to Billy? on Spotify
Punching Peaches headline The Róisín Dubh in Galway on November 15. Tickets here
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