The buzz surrounding The Murder Capital has escalated rapidly since the Dublinbased five-piece’s daring debut, When I Have Fears, landed back in August. “When I look back at everything the album has brought us, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude,” opines guitarist Cathal Roper when he’s told that When I Have Fears appears in LLV’s best albums of 2019 list. “It’s the kind of thing you dream about when you’re in a band starting out,” he adds of the reaction to the album.
The Murder Capital, completed by James McGovern (vocals), Damien Tuit (guitar), Gabriel Paschal Blake (bass) and Diarmuid Brennan (drums), have emerged from the shadowy underground with a sumptuous slab of melodramatic post-punk. Taking its title from a John Keats sonnet that questions mortality and regret, Roper reveals how the album “developed from discussions about death”. He says: “We wanted to explore that feeling of getting everything said, that needs to be said, before you die. Having that ‘concept’ helped a lot.”