Molly Vulpyne Band started life as a one off gig but has since morphed into something much much bigger with festival attendances and their debut album `Houndstooth and the Hum` released this month. They formed in 2024 when Dublin based songwriter Molly expanded her sound with a full band featuring Irish punk veterans Peter Jones (Paranoid Visions), Jay Bagnall (Paranoid Visions, Steve Ignorant Band), and Tony Carberry (The Lee Harveys). The band’s live reputation grew rapidly, performing at the National Stadium with Alexisonfire and Coheed and Cambria, playing to a packed-out Opera House at Rebellion Festival and supporting The Vaselines and CKY.
The album opens with the pounding rolling `Hook` with its almost detached vocal delivery. An enjoyably melodic garage rock offering which seems to express defiance in a relationship where standing up to one`s partner has shaken them. A stratagem which encourages the slightly vulnerable to be more assertive and self-assured. We have in `It Don’t Fit` a song about that feeling of not fitting into the 9–5 world or the artistic one either, not knowing where your place is. A kind of existential alienation or a state of profound, detached “otherness” and non-belonging. The track itself is a rhythmic mid paced rock out.
The wonderfully titled `Inertia Right Hand Man` could sum up my life at times, an apathetic bass led post punk foot tapper with delightful whoa whoa whoa harmonies which gave it a slightly dreamy almost spaghetti-western vibe. There`s more of a reflective ambience to the musically lively `I Wanna be your Filter`.
`14` mourns Molly`s Grandad but far from being gloomy its quite ruminative, stripped bare with electric guitar and vocals. A heartfelt eulogy that i`m sure her Grandfather would be very proud of. I couldn`t work out why the title was `14` but this number symbolises salvation, deliverance, and spiritual perfection (a double measure of seven) in biblical contexts so maybe that may be why. The band have shared that `My Expiry` came with a video made by friends, family and fans holding signs about their own insecurities, this idea that we’re ‘expired’ by 30, even though some people feel more alive at 60 than ever. So why does it always feel like we’re running out of time? Protect against societal pressure and the weight of expectation. It`s drenched in catchy and at times shimmering riffs and hooks and is a captivating earworm of a number.
`Ripe` is a tense slow burn with exudes a sort of vulnerability with some great guitar work that both Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots would be proud to call their own. We have a nod to those in the music industry who value style over substance and ego over art with ‘Ur a Fad,’ which races off at times with layered vocal harmonies. It`s about somebody who is shallow and vainglorious and has a brief spoken word segment superimposed over the track in the latter final section.
The final official cut `Ode to your Farewell` mourns a best friend and is a thumping pounding old style punk excursion. There is a hidden spoken word track, the album title `Houndstooth and the Hum`, a one hundred and sixty second poem or ode about the difficulties of modern societies ails. I felt it was a nice touch and seemed like a nod or link to other poets who emerged from the Emerald Isle`s capital city such as Yeats, Joyce, Wilde, and Beckett.
`Houndstooth and the Hum` had a kind of grungy melodic garage punk , post punk rock texture with lyrics that came from lived experience which allows a sense of reality. The title references houndstooth which exudes classic sophistication, power, and timeless elegance, while the hum or humming promotes calmness, regulates heart rate, increases nitric oxide, and carries deep spiritual significance in Buddhism and Hinduism, often symbolizing unity, divinity, or the “universal sound”. A yin and yang philosophy of sorts.
I`d encourage you to invest in this release and draw your own conclusions.
The band hit our shores in April and May for a few dates with The Darling Buds and Interrobang which will be a must see.
Rating 9/10
