Musical masterstroke from talented Ballina band

The superbly produced ‘Anima Mundi' features a wide range of tonal colouring, intricate textural layering and daring intros across its seven tracks, and is deserving of large-scale recognition for its quality. It’s the debut album from four-piece band John of the Apocalypse, three of whom are talented local artists who cut their musical teeth in various groups in Ballina.

Patrick Hallinan (vocals and guitar), Steve Dwane (drums) and Brendan Clarke (bass guitar) are all Ballina natives, but Dublin-based Boris Riquelme from Santiago in Chile completes the band line-up on lead guitar.

The oftentimes otherworldly vocals get the full recording engineering treatment, while classy six and four-string guitar sounds seem to run the full gamut of available guitar-playing techniques.

The complex and superbly crafted rhythms, underpinned by the drumming, reinforce the sense of instability that seeps through the narratives of the lyrics.

‘Anima Mundi' will take fans of this four-piece primitive alt-folk band on a new journey, to places not previously experienced in their back catalogue of recordings. Along the way, that trip stops off at subtle 1970s vibes, pure rock and roll, hard rock and hypnotic folk.

That latter style is revealed in the album’s best song ‘Whale’, with the clever use of an eBow on the guitar strings to create a breathy flute-like countermelody. This is the album’s best song from a mind-blowing list of great tracks, with the video available on the band’s You Tube channel.

On the themes of their debut album, the main songwriter and co-founder of what was originally a duo, Patrick Hallinan, said: “It’s fairly obvious we might be nearing end times, and there are dystopian themes in the album. But I think the more important threads hint at the sacred, the remaining spaces of light, no matter how immense the dark” 

Speaking about the creative process, drummer and co-founder of John of the Apocalypse Steve Dwane, noted: “It just takes a fragment, a couple of notes, a chord, a rhythm; we lock into it and let the music lead.” 

The band has played venues such as the Workman’s Club in Dublin, Livestock Outdoor Music Festival in Galway and The Conncert in Mayo.

The Dublin launch of the new album took place last weekend in Camden Street’s Anseo, with the Mayo premiere taking place this Saturday night, July 4, in TheNCF Co-op space on Pearse Street, Ballina.

The debut album from John of the Apocalypse is a musical masterstroke and is available on Bandcamp.