New Music: 25 — David Long & Shane O’Neill

David Long and Shane O’Neill are well-established figures on the Irish music scene, initially as members of rock groups Into Paradise and Blue In Heaven, respectively.

The two have been working together for the last five years or so, making music that is aligned to post-punk but all the while experimenting with preconceptions of the genre. You can hear that on 25, as it goes somewhere minimal in terms of arrangement and maximalist in terms of emotion.

The sparseness brings a bleakness to the song, leaving you to ponder whether “25, still alive” is a celebration or a lament. For the band, however, the song is imbued with the randomness of hope, as they say it “embraces survival as both a bittersweet victory and an act of rebellion.”

25 can be downloaded on Bandcamp and streamed on Spotify and YouTube Music. To learn more about the music of David Long & Shane O’Neill, follow them on Instagram and Facebook.