大象传媒

Note to self: stop reviewing so many awesome bands. Because honestly, what more can be said about Fight Like Apes? 听

Fight Like Apes are perhaps the best band in Ireland right now. Certainly the best live act. Their shouty, melodic, clamorous electro-indie-pop pandemonium is truly a sight to see.

Within a couple of minutes of their being on stage, you feel like you're at the most mental and fantastic party - at your mates' place. They have that whole zany, off-the-wall, exuberant rock star thing down, but they're still friendly and chatty and at ease with the crowd that it takes a lot of effort not to run up to them after the show, give them big hugs and ask if you can be bestest friends. When MayKay needs three takes to get 'Megameanie' right, she giggles the way you do after making a prat of yourself in front of your mates. None of the rock star pretension, all of the rock star swagger. Excellent.

And for all the loud discord of the thrashing banging basslines and drums, not to mention MayKay's wonderful screaming vocals, beneath these you will find some of the most joyously cynical and catchy pop songs you could imagine. The real accomplishment of FLA is the way they manage to marry together such very visceral energy and noise with these simply fantastic melodies and hooks, and tell insanely great stories along the way.

They're far from being one-trick ponies either. Tracks like the singles 'Jake Summers', 'Something Global' and 'Lend Me Your Face' are ear worm songs made for the radio and singing along to with a mile-wide grin on your face. But with the likes of 'Lumpy Dough' and show closer 'Battlestations', we get yearning vocals and intense atmosphere - seriously impressive electro soundscapes, giving them an added urgency and vital-ness their recorded counterparts lack.

And thus began their UK tour. Fingers crossed that 2009 will be the year for them. As much as we might like to keep them our little Irish secret, it'd be criminal for them to achieve anything less than global domination.

Orla Graham