FROM ITS beginnings as a solo side project for the quieter songs of Giveamanakick's Steve Ryan, to a fully fledged band enjoying critical acclaim and Choice Music Award nominations, Windings have come a long way.
It is a journey that has produced some excellent music, with many feeling that 2012's Choice nominated I Am The Crow was their highpoint, but Steve had other ideas, ideas that make up the band's latest album, Be Honest and Fear Not, released in September on Out on a Limb Records. As far as the band are concerned, its eight tracks make up their finest work to date.
Be Honest and Fear Not, opens with the startling ‘Ambivalence Blues’, with its wise, yet challenging refrain: “If you think respect is overrated/Maybe that’s because you just weren’t meant to get it/And when it comes to meeting new friends/Try not to think of it as making up numbers for your funeral", setting the tone for an album that is by turns contemplative, angry, humourous, melancholy, blissful, comfortably straddling indie-rock, psychedelia, Krautrock, and singer-songwriter.
The Irish Times called it, “one of the most colourful Irish indie albums you’re likely to hear this year", while Goldenplec said, “don’t be at all surprised to see this one coming up on the ‘Best Of ‘16’ lists".
Windings play Strange Brew at the Róisín Dubh on Thursday November 10 at 9pm. Admission is free.
