Album Review: Little Victories by The Strypes

As four mid-teenagers from small-town Cavan in rural Ireland, The Strypes burst onto the music scene in 2013 with their retro debut album Snapshot, which lovingly re-created the style of ’60s garage blues-rock and ’70s new-wave pub rock. What made it remarkable was not the music itself but how a band so young could imitate the sound of their heroes from two generations earlier so faithfully. Although they received a lot of positive publicity from high-profile musicians’ endorsements and a documentary film about them by Julien Temple, The Strypes were in danger of becoming dead-end prodigies.

Full Review >>

In 2013, Strypes drummer Evan Walsh – then aged 16 – dismissed a question about the rock’n’roll lifestyle in an interview with The Guardian saying, “We don’t have backstage parties. I can’t speak for the others but I just go to bed.” Back then, the teenage Cavan quartet were still playing breathless, immaculate blues sets to crowds gobsmacked by their presence and style. Noel Gallagher – often seen at their gigs – was impressed, as were Roger Daltrey and Elton John, whose Rocket Music Management signed the band.

Full Review >>

For their second album, the Strypes have boldly taken their sound several decades into the future. Unfortunately, this only takes them up to somewhere around 2005, so painstakingly retro was their debut album, Snapshot. The Irish teenagers’ old-school R&B stylings remain, but now co-exist alongside such bleeding-edge influences as Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys and the dozens of long-forgotten garage-rock revivalists who turned up to make a bit of a racket around the turn of the century.

Full Review >>

Uninspired follow-up to 2013’s Snapshot from the Cavan teen rockers. Much of the attention afforded the Irish four-piece on their emergence circa 2012-13 was due to their being in their mid-teens, and the novelty appeal of hearing such old music being played by such young musicians – basically, the Maximum R&B of mid-60s Stones and Animals and the mid-70s pub rock of Dr Feelgood et al. .

Full Review >>