reviews
“Tonight is a far cry from playing to a room full of his friends who only ever saw each other at his shows and subsequently spent the whole night talking…”
Full disclosure: I know Robyn G Shiels very well. Back when he was a not-so-humble shop keeper I was his humble assistant. It was probably the best job I ever had. Anyone who remembers the infamous newsagents, will have their own stories. Music was a constant and woe betide anyone who complained about the volume. […]
“Shiels is a songwriter of rare talent, with a flair for words both beautiful and brutal, often simultaneously, the brutality often directed at himself…”
Chris Jones for Culture NI Robyn G Sheils’ second album affirms his status as songwriter par excellence Robyn G Shiels’ second album has attained almost mythic status. It’s now almost eight-and-a-half years since he released his debut, A Lifetime Of Midnights, which makes The Blood Of The Innocents something akin to Shiels’ Chinese Democracy. In […]
“…the post-Christmas buzz is immediately silenced by his unmistakeable croak on ‘Hello Death’.”
‘Here’s a song that will be on my new album. It’s out in March or April,’ says Robyn G Shiels by way of introducing ‘The First To Know’. ‘What year?’ shouts some wag at the back of the room. Shiels takes it in the good humour in which it was intended, but it’s not such […]
“…if I saw the world as clear as this boozehound, I’d have probably taken my own life years ago”
“I picture this highway at dusk. You can barely make out what’s on either side, but it’s bright enough to see the yellow lines without needing cars and trucks driving by to make them visible. In between the two lanes is a wooden milk crate, battered and broken. To the right of the highway is […]
“…Shiels’ naked voice – bruised, yet richly timbred and endearing”
“Robyn G Shiels has been around for a while now. Quite a while. His debut release, a split 7” single with Desert Hearts, ‘Two Nights in June’, was released back in 2004. It received a lot of good press (including an 8 star review on the influential webzineDrowned in Sound, which compared his folk-country sound […]
“Like the songs it’s simple and stark – Just a face, voice, instruments”
“Look What You’ve Done is the new video from Robyn G. Shiels’ EP The Great Depression. Like the songs it’s simple and stark – Just a face, voice, instruments – but it’s moving. There’s a roughness in the vocal to offset some of the softer male singers Ireland’s produced recently.” Review of “Look What You’ve Done” […]
“…morose stripped-down laments, albeit exquisitely beautiful ones”
“When was the last time you saw a band that you couldn’t quite bring yourself to love until they cast off the knowing self-referential nods that seem specifically designed to appease cool magazines, websites and TV channels? Bands who do this are either idiots, or sane – but weak – people hedging their bets. Robyn G […]
“…songs ring with authenticity and bitter experience”
Review of The Great Depression from Folly of Youth Don’t let the ‘y’ in his name lead you to be expecting sassy Swedish electro -pop. R G Sheils is a singer-songwriter from Northern Ireland who deals in classic – and classically bleak – alt-country. His first LP was called “A Lifetime of Midnights” and the […]
