NewDad - Altar

As before, there is a temptation to play spot the influences. NewDad, to their credit, have never been shy about their debt to the 1980s and 1990s, and Altar references the entire A-Z of late-20th-century alternative icons, from Cocteau Twins to Sisters of Mercy via The Cure and Pixies.

Crucially, though, NewDad bring something new – something Irish – to the formula. There is a keening mournfulness to Dawson’s voice that means at moments it’s like listening to Sinéad O’Connor fronting The Breeders. Stormy basslines push ever forward, tightly cranked with purpose, but Dawson sounds like the saddest person in the universe, and that juxtaposition between guitar abandonment and turbocharged ennui is hugely affecting. (…)

That isn’t to say Altar is a downer. At full throttle it re-creates the energy of a heaving indie disco: Heavyweight starts with a gauzy Sonic Youth riff; Pretty has the twitchy quality of jangling postpunk guitar; and a slamming Pixies energy ripples through the single Roobosh, with its descending riff and rising bass.

These highs and lows reach a thunderous crescendo on Something’s Broken, a stormy epic that suggests a Taylor Swift power ballad filtered through old-school indie angst. It is breathtakingly bittersweet, an autumnal chugger that confirms NewDad as alt pop’s irresistible new godfathers of glum.

(The Irish Times)