The Walls:irishmusicmail

NEW DAWN BREAKING-CD~NEW DAWN BREAKING~The Stunning new album from the Walls1.Open Road 2.Passing through 3.To the bright and shining sun 4.Black and Blue 5.Romantic Ireland is dead and gone 6.Know your love 7.Ghosts 8.Out of the fog 9.Drowing pool 10.Highwire 11.Birthday Girl 12.New dawn breakingNew Dawn Breaking is the second album from The Walls. Recorded in France and Dublin with producer David Odlum (ex-The Frames) in the production seat, the 12-track album already contains three singles: their big hit 'To The Bright and Shining Sun’; the high-octane A-side from last October - 'Drowning Pool’ and the current single 'Passing Through’. In 2003 The Walls had been swindled out of thousands of euros in album royalties, so it was hoped that the re-release of Paradise in the Picturehouse - The Stunning’s debut album - would generate enough money to fund a new Walls record. The decision was made to reform The Stunning for a month and after a sell-out 18-date tour the success of the album was guaranteed. The Walls now had sufficient funds to make their album. However, there was a lot of catching up to do in The Walls camp as The Stunning project had taken more time than intended. At this stage they hadn’t released anything since their 2002 hit ‘To the Bright and Shining Sun’ and to many people they appeared to have gone underground. Original member Carl Harms left the band in February 2004 to concentrate on his own projects and with Carl now gone it was time for a re-think and a new approach. A new member, bassist Jon O’Connell was added to the line-up, which allowed Steve and Joe to concentrate on just guitars and vocals. The music that the band were listening at the time ranged from - Howling Wolf… Muddy Waters through to Link Wray…..Elvis…. Johnny Cash…. Dylan… Hendrix….Gram Parsons…. Them….The Velvet Underground…..The Stooges…..Bowie…Levon Helm and The Band…The Clash’s. The band wanted to make an album that was honest, real and not driven by any trends or hype. The songs would come first. According to Steve: ‘For the recording sessions we decided to limit the instrumentation to mostly just drums, bass and guitars to force the songs to stand up on their own. The music had to have soul. It was just the four of us in a room doing take after take till we got it right, the old-fashioned way. We wanted it to sound like our favourite records – to be about capturing a good performance and not sound over-produced’. Last October 2004 they released The Drowning Pool EP as a taster and also to bridge the gap till the album’s release the following spring. Drowning Pool, now included on the new album, is a blistering, spleen-venting, blues explosion, two minutes fifty two seconds in length. It took people by surprise and divided opinion which was exactly what the band wanted as it showed that there were changes afoot in The Walls camp. The current single Passing Through, a three minute slice of melodic, guitar-driven energy has been picked up by radio stations all over the country. The album still displays a diversity in songwriting styles. Track one Open Road is taut and pounding with spikey guitars reminiscent of Television, while the acoustic Black and Blue (featuring Brian Crosbie of Bell X1 on keyboards) has echoes of Simon and Garfunkel. The great poet WB Yeats even gets a look in on Romantic Ireland’s Dead and Gone, a song that takes a cynical look at the state of the nation today. Having toured some of the new EU accession states last March with Dublin instrumental rockers The Jimmy Cake, they were the first choice when it came to putting some brass and accordion on Know Your Love, a love song that builds from a whisper to a crescendo over six and a half minutes. A new song Ghosts was a late addition. As Joe Wallcommented – ‘The album was more or less completed when this tune was finished, but it just got stuck in everyone’s heads and had to go on’. Birthday Girl was written by Steve on the island of Inisboffin while going mad at the lack of mobile phone coverage as he tried to call his girlfriend to wish her happy birthday. And New Dawn Breaking - the longest track on the album - recounts a period of rock’n’shock in Joe’s lifestyle as he tries to adjust to the new addition to his life of a baby daughter. Other musicians that have popped up on the album include Dublin keyboard virtuoso Mick Whelan, Ollie Cole of Turn and Nick Seymour ex-Crowded House~NEW DAWN BREAKING|DIRTBIRD01|~3249~10320~NEW DAWN BREAKING~