The year has been good for albums from our newly-invented genre of blinder punk: a style of raucous, gothic, riff-heavy rock that litters the soundtrack of Peaky Blinders, a show that has become increasingly Tarantino for its tunes. The days of it being Nick Cave and a few string sections are long gone.

The Murder Capital are nominally punk, from Dublin, and have played with other blinder punk bands such as Idles and countrymen Fontaines DC — Idles had a song in the Blinders finale, Never Fight A Man With A Perm, which may or may not be plot-specific. (There’s also the actual band called The Blinders, of course).

The Murder Capital start off sounding like the rest, punky and noisy, but we think they’re more like early U2, with the same mix of melody and swirling punky rock — and the same possibility of mainstream success. The drum-heavy opener For Everything is rougher than a Leprechaun’s cheese grater but even that closes with a more ambitious melodic section.

More Is Less, like some other songs, seems to indicate a fondness for Joy Division, while songs like Green And Blue suggest the more mature direction the band could head in once the youthful energy is replaced with experience. On more than one track, an Edge guitar solo could drop in and not sound out of place, and they can do slow and tender, too.

Well worth a listen if you like early (Boy era) U2, or any of the Peaky Blinders tunes.

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