Album Review: Chasing Abbey – Cyber Celt

It took ten years of hard work, relentlessly touring and releasing EPs, before Ireland’s Chasing Abbey achieved deserved ‘overnight success’ in 2026.

Currently on their biggest U.S. tour to date, Cyber Celt – it’s actually their first album since being founded in 2016 – is the perfect way for those not familiar with Chasing Abbey to enter the world that has made the band from Tullamore a worldwide sensation.

There’s no doubting that the album’s honesty and the forthright nature of the songs will offend some, and that is one of its strengths. The first two songs, Gorta and T.a.L., are proud of their lyrics and politics. Focusing on events that have left lasting scars on the Irish psyche, the Great Hunger of the 18th century and the inequality arising from corruption that defines modern Ireland, the trio are not out to win friends but speak truth to power.

Further into the album, Greedy Pigs unleashes an unvarnished tale of how greed can ultimately lead to our own fall, as there is often a fatter, greedier pig out there – and if not, the slaughterhouse awaits. Not a pretty message, but in a world of billionaires and trillionaires, it warns us to look up and the pen masters, not the swill they serve us.

Nor is the band averse to highlighting discrimination: the blistering Culchie might seem odd to outsiders, but even now, there can still be real stigma attached to being from a town or village. I can’t help but wonder if that is a hangover from the days of empire.  

Folk music in Ireland has never been static, as can be seen in how instruments like the banjo and bouzouki have become part of the modern vernacular. And unless my ears deceive me, they are present on Cyber Celt. Chasing Abbey look to dance music and electronica throughout the album, with Arís Is Arís in particular combing rumbling techno with banjo-led melody and some trance-flavoured female backing vocals.

It’s also a great example of how the band works to make the Irish language fit within newer influences and ideas. They also place English and Irish alongside each other as equals, putting the Irish language on a worldwide stage within songs like Íorónta and Saoirse Saoirse. It puts them alongside Kneecap and Lankum in that respect, looking to the new to express the old. The experiences and music of Ireland, as well as echoes of the diaspora, add to the cultural fusion that marks Ireland down the ages, and for me, the album is a perfect distillation and expression of that.  

Our difficult and damaging history, along with centuries of discrimination, has left us Irish often laden with guilt for acts perpetrated on us, or committed without permission in our name. Colonised Minds looks at our past, though the message is equally a global one. It also reinforces another aspect that has led to the band becoming so successful in recent years: identifying commonalities of oppression globally, and issuing a warning to those that would keep us down, no matter where we are.

As well as being a brave and beautiful, ground breaking album, Cyber Celt should be viewed as a vital part of the reclamation of Ireland’s past, present, and future for those that speak ill of us, or think they can speak for us.

That is even more important now, as some thirst for Ireland to return to the past, and others refuse to let go of the misconceptions and hatred they have for Ireland and the Irish. You don’t need to be Irish to understand that indefinable essence that makes the album a celebration, a warning, and a call to arms, and that ability to connect our experiences to a global audience is a major part of its, and the band’s, increasing success.

Cyber Celt is out now and streaming on all major platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music. Get more listening options for the album and details of those live dates on Chasing Abbey’s Facebook and Instagram feeds.