The Rags release debut album ‘A National Light’ on May 28th 2010.
Led by vocalist and songwriter Daniel Anderson, The Rags have built a passionately devoted following on home shores for their sophisticated blend of melodically inventive guitar-pop and razor-sharp lyrical expressiveness.
The album is preceded by the release of the single ‘A National Light’ on May 14th; the album’s Joyce-sampling, Yeats-referencing title track which wonderfully articulates a redemptive call to arms by means of a fantastical apparition. “I had a dream that there was blood in stream and the heads of the parliament drowned–face down, Gucci suits and blank cheque books burst the banks of the Liffey and we owned the city”. ‘A National Light’ cuts deep into the carcass of Irish society to unearth the crushing beauty still stitched in the fabric of its modern mechanisms: “Pearse was smiling at Joyce recoiling, By the granite of his grave Oscar prayed”.
The feelings and sentiments of which are expressed on these tracks are underpinned by a unifying sense of purpose. The sordid narrative observed amid the swirling web of sinister guitar hooks and throbbing drumbeats of ‘A Murderous Chant’, the deceptively danceable Wildean-themed elaboration on superficiality ‘A Mirror To A Woman (Is A Bullet In A Gun)’ and the quiet desperation at the heart of the delicately psychedelic ‘Owner Of A Loveless Life’ provide the foundation for a remarkable modern pop record. ‘A National Light’ laments the spirit-crushing travails of modernity while shining a benevolent beam of consolation on us all.
Tracklisting
1. Uniforms & Neckties
2. Love Is a Lie
3. A Murderous Chant
4. A National Light
5. Owner of a Loveless Life
6. Memories Are Rife
7. A Mirror to a Woman (Is a Bullet in a Gun)
8. Bin Bag
9. Gatling Gun
10. Bury the Queen
11. Razors & Ropes
12. Pennies for Thoughts
In the second in a series of specially recorded acoustic tracks, Daniel performs ‘Bin Bag’ live and acoustic.
Filmed by Will McConnell/Bandwidth Films.
We are deranged
We’re pallid and grey
The youth and today is a tasteless display
With no indication of any style
Just uniforms and neckties
Haircare and Saturday nights
Where the lords of a miserable life
Are bitten by their own design
In uniformity’s aisles, where vanity cried:
‘Cover your own backsides’
Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best leather jacket in town
You fell from that social scene
And you were dressed in those drainpipe jeans
And through a crack in the head
You were forcefully fed
Some information that made you turn green
Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best leather jacket in town
Jealousy’s the crime and the maladies mine
Love was a drug that I never understood
And ye hope:
If we let go, it might just leave us alone
Our time was never really well invested
Or thoughtfully spent, keeping abreast of the rent
And when I walk home, it’s usually alone
That way I won’t lower the tone
When I kick and I scream and I punch at the air
And I speak to the heavens about losing my hair
We only get a moment, only get a moment
They’ll give me three seconds and leave me with nothing
Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best knitted jumper in town
I have recently been given cause to rummage through that which either makes me think or makes me sick. This blog gives me the opportunity to share some of my explorations and discoveries with anyone who wants to know what turns me on. Here are but a few things, bright and beautiful pieces that have imbued me with wonder and adoration.
Here is a web-only video from our song ‘Love is a Lie’ which will feature on our debut album ‘A National Light’.
It features footage from Edward Albee’s production of ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?‘ (1966) featuring a malevolent married couple sublimely performed by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Check back to THERAGS.COM soon for some more videos for tracks from ‘A National Light’ ahead of the album’s release.
