Slyrydes: The Low-Down

For Slyrydes, music must have meaning. They see their brand of boisterous, angry punk as the most powerful way of getting their point across, and they have many points to make.

Mark Raftery, the lyricist, says he “would be politically minded, so it just comes out“. The passion that they put into their songs has earned them praise on a national level from the likes of Nialler9 and The Thin Air. Furthermore, the band recently played a live session on the legendary Paul McCloone Show, on Today FM, with the host calling their music “pertinent, brilliant”. By all accounts, it is going to be a big year for Slyrydes.

They formed in late 2013 as a reaction to the bland music that was filling the airwaves. “Ireland was coming out of a really bad economic recession and we had wealthy lads on the radio singing about J1s, does nobody have anything to say?”. They operated primarily as a live band at the beginning and earned some high-profile support slots with the likes of Fight Like Apes and Palma Violets. The band are now fully committed after a few years of members moving around or working part-time jobs and they “are going about it professionally, with no half measures”.

Saturday night in The Róisín Dubh was their first gig in Galway for a long time and their new-found reputation helped to secure two fantastic support bands in Melts and Creative Crime. Slyrydes themselves are an extremely tight band, with Mark Comer’s bright lead guitar noises lifting the songs and filling the room. The rhythm of Fuz Reilly on bass and stand-in drummer Simon McDonagh (of Oh Boland fame) gave the perfect foundation to the songs. Despite the emotion of Raftery’s vocals, the band find quite a musical and melodic method of delivery. When Raftery leaves down his guitar and picks up the microphone we get a taste of the real Slyrydes; the crowd swells with excitement and renewed fervour. Here, he feels more comfortable and it gives the lyrics more weight as the audience’s attention is fixated solely on what is being said and not necessarily what is being played. The band finished with the anthemic, "Mental Health".

Slyrydes’ latest single, "Mental Health", is a scathing attack on the “national scandal” that is the “shambolic Irish Health Service” and its strength comes in its simplicity. Marc Raftery explains how the song “came together in 5 minutes” but was born out of prolonged frustration. The music is wild and the lyrics repeat the struggles of a patient simply trying to get an appointment but being only deemed worthy of “a letter from the HSE”. The song is not questioning the merit of the treatment available to patients because, unfortunately for most, they can’t even get to that stage. Most patients can’t even begin to get the help that they need. This single seems to come at an appropriate time in Irish culture. While our country is becoming a more tolerable place overall, there is still a stigma regarding mental health that makes it difficult for some sufferers to open up about it. I believe that the more music that is written to question the issues, the more likely we are to see a change.

All photography by Ciarán MacChoncarraige