Director
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Director

| INDIE

| INDIE
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"I'll Wait For Sound Album Review"

Yet another Irish band to have been picked up by a major label, only to fall victim to an accountant’s red marker, Director haven’t allowed the grass to grow under their feet. From the release of their 2006 debut, We Thrive on Big Cities, they’ve ping-ponged their way from the upstairs of a Dublin pub to a countryside retreat in Leitrim to a home studio in LA. Such geographical perspectives and their accompanying disparate lifestyles have seeped into I’ll Wait For Sound which sounds like a deft combination of primetime Depehce Mode, surging New Order and – most crucially – a totally in-charge Director. Tracks such as Don’t Think I’ll Know, Sing It Without A Tune and At What Point neatly encapsulate the band’s approach, which takes in as much pummelling as caressing. Director tour nationwide throughout May; you know what to do. Oh, one more thing: Albert Reyes’s cover art, is excellent. - The Irish Times 1 May 2009


"I'll Wait For Sound Album Review"

Whatever ‘it’ is – the thing people say hopeful bands have, the quality that could make them the new Kings Of Leon – Director definitely have ‘it’, and in greater quantity than nearly any band in the country.
The snappy drum beat of opener Play Pretend gives way to a chorus that demands dancefloor shout-alongs, and things barely let up for the next 44 minutes of this concise brilliant, record.
The opener alone could conquer the world, but it soon gives way to the hummably quirky Don’t Think I’ll Know, as powerful a one-two start as any this side of Definitely Maybe.
Director’s enthusiasm for a catchy hook is undiminished, a point the stomping Moment To Moment proves and the scorching title track rams home with some force.
It’s been a long wait to hear more from this promising outfit, and it’s a testament to the band’s patience that the result is so rip-roaring.
Even a cursory listen reveals at least five killer singles – not bad for a 10-track album. Seriously get in there now before everyone else does.

Verdict: Lights, camera, revolution.

- Star Sunday 3 May 2009


"I'll Wait For Sound Album Review"

Having been dropped by Warner after their promising 2006 debut We Thrive on Big Cities, Director have marched on regardless and recorded a much more mature set.
Produced in LA by Brad Wood (of Smashing Pumpkins and Placebo fame), the new opus embraces influences such as New Order, Depeche Mode and on the title track, the big, wide-screen sound of U2.
Sonically, everything in the Director canon has been beefed up considerably, and Michael Moloney’s songwriting skills have been polished to the point that it’s evident everything here has been through quality control a few times over.
Consistency is thus the a new weapon in the armoury: you’ll find it hard to resist the charms of tracks such as Don’t Think I’ll Know, Sing It Without A Tune and the wonderfully urgent Laserpoint.
The Scene can’t wait to see the Dublin foursome perform tracks from this great album in the live arena.
- The Star 15 May 2009


"Hot Press Readers Poll 2007"

Hot Press Readers Poll 2007

No. 1 Best Debut Album - 'We Thrive on Big Cities'
No. 1 Most Promising Act - Director
No. 3 Best Album - 'We Thrive on Big Cities'
No. 3 Best Single - 'Reconnect'
No. 4 Best Website
No. 4 Best Album Sleeve
No. 5 Best Irish Band
No. 6 Best Live Act
- Hot Press Ireland


"I'll Wait For Sound Album Review"

It's not often that the complimentary question 'Is this the same band?' comes to mind when listening to albums, but it happens here - a lot.

Three years on from their too polite debut, 'We Thrive on Big Cities', Director have made a huge jump from the mediocre to the memorable, and shown just how much a band can accomplish with a good dose of self-criticism.

After toughening up their sound - and with a great production job from Smashing Pumpkins/Placebo producer Brad Wood - new depths to frontman Michael Moloney as a songwriter are revealed, and these suitably skewed takes on relationships have an urgency and consistency that was missing in 2006.

Whether full-on or caressing, the guitars, bass and drums are great, with Moloney's voice far more commanding than seemed possible the first time 'round.

And if you're someone who becomes fixated by certain tracks on albums and finds it hard to listen past them, then the closing epic, 'Can't Go Home', could prove very difficult to shake.

Harry Guerin


- RTE.ie


Discography

Reconnect [Single] - April 2006
Come With A Friend [Single] - September 2006
We Thrive On Big Cities [Album] - October 2006
Leave It To Me [E.P.] - January 2009
Be With You [Single] - May 2007
Sing It Without A Tune [Single] May 2009
I'll Wait For Sound [Album] May 2009

Photos

Bio

Since their irresistible bid for notice on the Dublin rock circuit in 2005, Director’s crafted, intelligent guitar music has stood them apart from the usual suspects.

The band’s genesis saw three Malahide college entrants, guitarist Aherne, bassist Averill and frontman Moloney, playing together, sharing an aesthetic and with a few songs already starting to form. They began to take the operation seriously, assuming roles and casting around for a drummer to complete the outfit. Moloney, while studying for his degree in music, made the acquaintance of just such a drummer, classmate Lawlor, whose interests were in harmony with those of the group. Director were complete. A year later, after an arresting sequence of live shows, amid growing popularity, Director recorded their debut record, We Thrive On Big Cities, for Atlantic Records.

It seems like the typical back-story for a rock quartet but Director are far from that. In everything they have done, the band have demonstrated an atypical and business-like directness. The de rigeur posturing of the typical indie-group is absent. The goal was always to write accessible, immediate, enjoyable pieces of music. Director constructed their songs with an auteur-ish pop sensibility, compromising neither on artistry nor mass-appeal. Their first volley of live shows couldn’t fail to win converts. The sheer speed with which they commanded major-label attention was no fluke. They meant business from the very beginning.

Since then, their story has been anything but ordinary. We Thrive On Big Cities brought Director widespread success in Ireland (well over platinum status sales and a chart presence for 28 weeks after debuting at number 2 in the album charts). Director played to packed-out venues across Ireland, and commanded large crowds at their Oxegen festival appearances. Accolades were forthcoming as they won Best New Act at the Meteor Awards 2007 while We Thrive On Big Cities picked up a nomination for the Choice Music Prize Album of the Year.

Meanwhile Director began to pick up a following across the Irish Sea, where a seriesof support slots for successful British acts like Hard-Fi, Razorlight and The Fratellis along with numerous festival appearances won them an appreciative audience.

In late 2007 work began on an entirely new set of songs guided by the same exacting standards that had informed their debut. A space was rented over a Dublin pub, and the band threw themselves into a four month-long intensive writing period. Adopting a disciplined song-writing regime, the group often concentrated on a single song for days, moving on only after they were happy that some significant progress had been accomplished.

The method bore fruit, and Director began to find themselves with material for what they felt could be a fitting follow-up to their debut. Four months of rehearsal in the darkness of a windowless room, however, took its toll on the band, and it was felt that a relocation was in order, both for the health of the record and of its authors.

‘…working in Dublin all the time really started to get to us. It’s really hard to find a space that you can use every day and leave all your gear in. We’d had about all we could take and were spending an absolute fortune on coffee too.’
Eoin Aherne

The new venue was a small house in the Leitrim countryside for the spring of 2008, where, due to a shortage of bedrooms, each of the four took turns sleeping on the floor of the rehearsal room. Despite the apparent absence of creature comforts, the relocation had a profound effect on the creative energies of the band. The revitalising effect of the countryside; the proximity to wildlife; the absence of distractions; a welcome intrusion of sunlight into the workplace; all of these things helped Director to take the promising material they had previously fashioned and wrestle it into a more muscular, organic whole.

‘…we’d get up in the morning, have some breakfast and then just play – all day. If we weren’t playing we’d always be thinking – just throwing around ideas as we were chatting or sitting outside’
Michael Moloney

Gradually, an album emerged from the process, which was somehow more than the sum of its parts; a powerful, integral set of interrogatory reflections on romantic love, with a new, leaner sound which genuinely excited the band, and made them eager to record.

In the autumn, Director headed to Los Angeles, a significant change of scene for the band, to spend seven weeks recording in the home studio of producer Brad Wood (Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, Placebo), who was eager to work on the album.

‘Brad had so much experience. Nothing fazed him and he really allowed us to go about the recording exactly as we wanted. He just imposed some discipline on moving fast, not getting bogged down in the little things, things that had really slowed us down and taken the spontaneity out before’
Aherne

Against the backdrop of