Pearse McGloughlin

'Attractive melodic sections alternating with full on barrages of sound....Pearse McGloughlin can deliver the goodies' ……………..Hot Press - Hot Press (Ireland)

'euphoric indie rock which falls somewhere between the explosive guitars of Muse and the emotionally heavy sounds of Placebo’…..Road Records - Road Records

Pearse McGloughlin is an immediately engaging performer, whose natural demeanour and soft-spoken asides offer little indication as to the extent of his talent, both as a musician and songwriter.

I imagine it takes a degree of discipline and perseverance to confidently roll out these quite complex-sounding rhythms, while simultaneously singing such poetically crafted narrative songs. It was as though he had honed his rhythm guitar skills quite independently of his lyrics and then found out, by a happy accident, that he could time the two things together and get an interesting song structure.

The fact is, Pearse was playing material for us which is arranged and produced with rather more fullness of sound on the Walkperson band recordings and also, I would guess, as a band stage set. It is a credit to his ability as a solo performer, that he can deliver these same songs with so much energy. I particularly enjoyed the song about Lobsters, or it may have been a different song, but the dampened string effects sounded nippy! I had a few problems understanding his accent, as I realised when I got home and played the title song of the EP “Desired Effect”. It has a strong hook line, which I heard in the live version as “Is this deep desire de facto?” The inherently Irish-sounding vocal purity gave clarity to most of what he sang though, as was evident in the song “Flatline”.

My only complaint was that the set seemed rather short, as Pearse was dependent on Sunday train times. Before we knew it, he had disappeared off to the station. I looked on the stage step for the magical rhythmic baseball boot, but there was no sign of him, so I guess he must have got away in time.


Lesley Chambers, Art and Soul magazine. Peterborough - Art and soul

Pearse McGloughlin
Busy Whisper
Urchin
You can tell that Sligo-born singer-songwriter Pearse McGloughlin has been around the musical block a few times. While his back-pages contain details of time spent in various bands and cities, the songs on Busy Whisper are far more telling. Practice makes perfect and you can trace the narrative of McGloughlin’s craft in the gentle brush-strokes of his songs and the quiet, powerful authority of his voice. For the most part, his songs are mellow and coated in several lush, strung-out layers of musical paint. But these tender, bittersweet sounds are never wimpy. The emotional shadows cast on the opening L’espoir des revenants , for instance, immediately draw you into McGloughlin’s rustic realm. By the time his next album comes around, expect many more to be kept spellbound by his songs. www. myspace.com/walkperson JIM CARROLL

- Irish Times

A review of the album Busy Whisper by Pearse McGloughlin
Review Snapshot:BusyWhisper is a haunting collection of ten songs that reflect on those moments of longing that appear to happen in the peripheral. Sparse without being bleak, Busy Whisper sees McGloughlin emerge as one of Ireland's finest song writing talents.

The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10

Full Review:
The name Pearse McGloughlin might not mean anything to you now, but I don't doubt that it will become a great deal more familiar when Busy Whisper makes its way on to many end of year 'best of' lists. Full of ghostly compositions and tender melodies, it is hard to believe that Busy Whisper is a debut album and yet it is, perhaps, the finest Irish solo record I've heard since Damien Rice released O.

I've always found that one of the most disappointing aspects of real life is that it doesn't come with its own soundtrack, unlike movies and TV. If real life did have a soundtrack then Busy Whisper would provide the perfect accompaniment to those moments when memories that have stood quietly in the shadows for so long finally take centre stage. Opening with the wonderfully arranged L'espoir des Revenants, the first thing that strikes you about McGloughlin is how powerful his voice is.

McGloughlin's vocals are without a doubt his most effective instrument and serves as the perfect foil to the sparse layers upon microscopic layers of multi-instrumentation that colour the majority of tracks on Busy Whisper. Indeed, McGloughlin's voice is so good; it takes a number of listens to fully appreciate his talent as a lyricist and musician. Ways to Kill a Werewolf and Passion Song deal with the surreal and the (relatively) mundane respectively and yet, such is McGloughlin's ability as a songwriter, you can't help but be drawn into the both worlds.

Busy Whisper is exactly the sort of album that should see the LP survive as a format. There is no filler here and stand-out tracks are plentiful. Consume, Changeling and Long Day are exceptionally good but my own personal favourite is Saul (oh, you foolish Alice!) if only for the lyric: Met Saul last night/In a brawl/Still talking like he's in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas/Says his job makes his skin crawl/Gotta get away/Soon as he gets some of that overtime pay.

Overall, Busy Whisper is a stunningly good debut album that showcases Pearse McGloughlin as one of Ireland's brightest musical prospects.

Steve O'Rourke - Cluas