Gigi's Recovery

While some might mourn the loss of their one-time raucousness, ‘Gigi’s Recovery’ shows that their momentum swings only forwards.

Gigi's Recovery fully achieves TMC's transformative purpose, its lyrics of unflinching self-scrutiny leading to side two's exhilarating Only Good Things and the thrillingly airborne climactic title track. [Feb 2023, p.82]

If you need a soundtrack to your 90 in 90, this is it. The pitfalls, the purity, the piousness of recovery. Just promise you’ll listen to it at least three times. It’s worth it.

The Murder Capital may have arrived with a shout and a fist but they’re soaring now with nuance, ideas, a whole lot of heart and the first great guitar album of 2023.

There's something hypnotic about The Stars that Leave the Stage, one of the most inscrutable and forward-thinking cuts here, on which he establishes a calamitous tension over a spooky piano motif reminiscent of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' From Her to Eternity. The band sounds largely more muscular and self-assured, with a terrific rhythm section to boot.

There are plenty of immediately-engrossing moments, like the dramatic vocal narration of “The Stars Will Leave Their Stage” or the rousing solo in “A Thousand Lives”, but mostly what I return for is the sense of development within songs and from one track to another. This is an album which manages to cover a lot of territory in under fifty minutes, even if the brief intro and outro tracks don’t feel fully fleshed out (my largest criticism).

Gigi's Recovery is an excellent record, and The Murder Capital have laid the first real claim to Album of the Year.

At their best, which is often on Gigi’s Recovery, the Murder Capital combine muscular drama and skeletal grace with a confidence that Radiohead would be proud of.

Full of safe risks, Gigi’s Recovery is very much a transitional album as The Murder Capital look to evolve without alienating their fanbase. Doors are left wide open for subsequent reinventions but for now, the five-piece are comfortable sticking close-by what they know.

While this Dublin quintet's latest stops short of total reinvention, the changes are marked - John Congleton brings the darkly spangled, alt.rock power, and textured synths do a lot of the melodic lifting. [Feb 2023, p.32]