The name is a stumbling block. I'll admit that up front. It's a stumbling block for me, anyway. Maybe you don't have that problem. Maybe you're like, "Oh, Theatre, what a perfectly normal and acceptable name for a band. What's that? They actually stylize it THEATRE? That's fine! I will honor that decision whenever I write about the band!" That's just not where I am, personally. I have this innate thing where I see the word "Theatre," when it's spelled like that, and I immediately get annoyed. There's no reason that the Irish band Theatre would know this about me, so I can't really hold them responsible. Here's the point: You know that this band's new song is good when it smashes right past my persnickety aesthetic proclivities.
So. Theatre. Or THEATRE, if you prefer. (They would. I would not.) They've got a big, churning sound that's plenty familiar at a moment when we're getting a lot of shoegaze-leaning alt-rock. This band stands out because they've got a singer, Maeve O’Shea, with a gigantic and unreal voice that recalls past Irish greats like Sinéad O'Connor and Dolores O'Riordan, and also because they know how to smash down the gas pedal on the chorus.
Today, Theatre share their debut single "The Fall," and it's a good one. I don't think it's about Mark E. Smith. Musically, we're very much in post-Deftones territory, but most of the bands working in that zone don't have singers like O'Shea. The band says that the song "tells the story of a broken friendship, a changeling like person, and the torment that comes with loving someone as toxic as that." Below, check out the Keelin Sutcliffe-directed video, as well as the dates for Theatre's upcoming UK tour with Bleech 9:3.
TOUR DATES:
4/16 - London, UK @ Third Man Records
5/05 - London, UK @ Elephant’s Head
5/06 - Norwich, UK @ The Waterfront Studio *
5/07 - Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds *
5/09 - Glasgow, UK @ The Road To The Great Escape
5/11 - London, UK @ Camden Assembly *
5/12 - London, UK @ Camden Assembly *
5/14 - Brighton, UK @ The Great Escape
5/15 - Paris, France @ Supersonic Block Party
5/16 - London, UK @ Scala *
5/18 - Sheffield, UK @ Yellow Arch *
5/19 - Manchester, UK @ YES (Pink Room) *
5/21 - Dublin, Ireland @ Whelan’s Upstairs
5/22 - Listowel, Ireland @ Mike the Pies
5/23 - Limerick, Ireland @ Kasbah
7/15 - Topcliffe, UK @ Deer Shed Festival
7/26 - Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Festival
8/29 - Sheffield, UK @ Rock N Roll Circus
* with Bleech 9:3
"The Fall" is out now on BMG/Echo.
