'Ticket's There' – Irish and International Music Blog

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time again. Welcome to another Tickets There MySpace Review. The Blog that searches through Irish bands, picks one and random and lets you know if their worth checking out or just another over hyped, under talented pile of wasters. Today’s choice is Dublin locals, The Hassle Merchants. They describe themselves as Energetic alternative puck and apparently won Connected Magazine’s Band of the Year award in 2007. So, with the bullshit PR out of the way, lets get down to brace taxes.

As almost usual with these reviews, I haven’t seen them live (that I know off, don’t remember them anyway) and haven’t heard their album (if they have one).

OK, first song on their MySpace is Friendly Neighbourhood Scumbag. I won’t lie, I like this song title. I also like the intro. Nice acoustic downer in little bursts with a good bass’ed up kick drum, pounding away slowly. Oh, things go a little way wire about a minute into the song and things start to sound a little scattered. The verse is pretty good but the bridge is a little too familiar for my tastes and the chorus starts well but then goes into a nah, nah, nah kind of bollocks and won’t just let loose. An amateur lead guitar and bad production really shit on things more and more towards the end. Little boring and not what I was hoping for. Still a good title though.

Boy Go Home’s up next. Very empty sounding but that’s just the affects. Vocals sound a bit better, kind of a Drop Kick Murphy’s number but not as good. Ah, there’s the bridge again, boring. Chorus sounds like a thousand other bad punk songs so that kind of gives the game away. I can see what they’re trying to do but it aint working.

The worst thing about modern punk bands is that they still try and recreate that anger, angst, rebellion and anarchist spirit kids in the mid seventies harnessed and made work, without trying to develop it. How can a music that’s over thirty years old revolutionize anything? You didn’t see the Sid Vicious sweating about reproducing Frank Sinatra did ya? Sun of A Nun is next. Again, not a bad intro. Even when things kick in it’s not too bad. Very simple and nothing worth shouting about but definitely a marked improvement after the other two songs. They actually manage to make the whole thing sound planned out on this one. The title is probably meant to be their ‘Shocking Number’ but Tickets There see’s no such infamy. Even the guitar solo manages to sound a little more polished and rehearsed this time. Yep, Tickets There is finally enjoying the Hassle Merchants. Let’s hope it carries on because I have another five reviews to write today and I don’t want to lose my caffeine buzz.  

Echoes in Empty Hall’s is next and another good intro, best yet actually. Agh God, until that fucking stupid low toned riff comes in. Bands, stop using that, it’s fucking sickening. (Anyways, In the mean time) things are going pretty well. The Libertines keep popping into my mind for some reason, even though this crowd don’t really sound much like them, I’m just getting this kind of FAKE buzz from their sound. Like their good songs are only good by accident. You can hear the Clash pouring through on this track and that only makes things worse because now I want to listen to them instead. Agh, I’m a little bored.  

Get Your Finger Out brings us to our second last track and it’s pretty bad. The main Riff is so used before, I’m pretty sure they collected the insurance payout. They’ve gone from having two relatively well constructed songs to the standards of the first two and made it a little more childish. It’s short but still manages to drag on longer than Lord of the Rings. Waiter, next song please. The final track is called Acoustic Dublin’s Screaming Murder Live (I’m sure the words Acoustic and Live were added due to this being an acoustic song preformed live. Ya see, Math and Physics mixed with logic does get you places). Now this is alright. Pretty much about people in Dublin getting shot and not much happening about it. I’m not 100% sure, but their blaming it on some pretentious cunts. Not sure if they’re talking about the Whelan’s or Odessa Club crowd on a Saturday night but I hope so. All shit aside, it’s not a bad song. Worth checking out if you’re bored and one of the three half decent tracks here.

Overall…not too bad. As you probably noticed my enthusiasm is waning a little but they definitely aren’t the worst lot out there but also haven’t matured enough yet to deserve the worlds attention. Maybe in a couple of years.

This entry was posted on July 1, 2009 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Music, MySpace Review with tags IRISH NOISE!, The Hassle Merchants, The Hassle Merchants review, Tickets There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.