EP Review
DIVIL
I (aka The First Three Songs EP)
DL / Streaming only
Out now
Exceptional new band from Ireland – Debut EP – Grief, cancer, catharsis and friendship as a form of survival – Ged Babey rarely reviews new bands based on press releases, but makes an exception for DIVIL – because the songs are stunning, the back-story is emotional and you rarely get a band with crossover-potential and cathartic authenticity like this.
The band are three childhood friends who hadn’t been in a room together in nearly a decade. They only reconnected after the death of the singer’s father, and then, within weeks, the bassist was diagnosed with cancer. The project essentially becomes a way of processing all of that, but what’s interesting is how unsentimental it is.
I’ve stopped listening to so much ‘loud-guitar, rock music’ over recent years. Blame the Wonky Folk, Lisa O’Neill… and before that Benefits and Sleaford Mods. Rock music generally-speaking has become superficial and lost all meaning.
Over the past 10 years IDLES and Fontaines DC are the only credible bands to make the transition from underground to the mainstream / international festival circuit and change the sound of rock into something brave and new with a bit of actual content. (This is my opinion and of course there are loads more genuine bands on the periphery of the Business radar.)
DIVIL could well be seen as a band influenced by both IDLES and FDC, due to their ‘aggressive vulnerability’ and the fact they are Irish. Ireland has always produced great bands from the from Radiators From Space, to Whipping Boy, A House, The Cranberries… but its going through a phase of being in the Biz/media spotlight currently.
DIVIL have ‘dropped’ the three songs on this EP one by one over the past three months. They are all potentially massive, cult, ‘hit singles’ -all-consuming songs, anthems with a serrated edge. They equal the first three singles by any great band you care to mention (as well as IDLES and Fontaines) maybe even Radiohead….
At my grand old age I try and avoid the hyperbole of I Have Seen the Future of Rock’n’Roll… rock journalism, but sometimes, all there is to say is… THIS IS FUCKIN’ AMAZING! LISTEN TO THIS!
That. Is. A Great song. By any standards. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s a song that gets its hooks in ya. This is a decent band. I don’t understand what the splats are that he mentions – and I am fascinated by the desire to ‘wanna feel like I’m in school again’. Is life so shit as you become an adult in this century/decade that you really wanna go back to that! It must be a generational thing. The intro chords are almost ‘Absolute Beginners’, the vocal is so powerful it blows your head off. The bass-playing is incredible…
The video was filmed at their old school, Mount Temple in Clontarf (famously, U2 formed there in the late seventies). It has the same kind of graphics and editing as Brutalism period IDLES… and the thing that puts me off most is that the singer is wearing grey jogging bottoms AND has a crap goatee/ moustache combo. I’m kinda judgemental like that…and ordinarily reason enough to not cover the band at all . But the man has more on his mind than sartorial elegance… the full Press Release…
DIVIL is the sound of 3 childhood friends processing death, sickness and fatherhood. For singer Danny Dempsey McMahon, guitarist Jocelyn Vance and bassist Conor Cusack, it’s a vital creative outlet, a place to explore pain and grief.
After spending the majority of their childhood together in the same primary and secondary school, they hadn’t been in the same room together in nearly a decade. Sadly, it took the death of Danny’s father Tommy, for them to reconnect.
Danny and Joc had spent their twenties making music in a number of bands in Dublin and despite great talent, lacked the industry savvy to make an impact. Cusack, by contrast had spent his twenties in Dublin band SPIES before embarking on a decade long career as an artist manager.
The three had drifted away from playing music and each other, focusing their attention on their careers and young family in Jocelyn’s case. In 2023, Danny’s father fell ill, and he moved in to care for him. A precious time, it was during this period he started to write songs again. In the pub the night of the funeral, Cusack watched the other two sing The Rocky Road to Dublin and was struck by the intensely personal and deep musical bond they shared and felt that when the time was right that they should write music together.
The following month, following a routine chest X-Ray, Cusack was informed he had a massive tumour in his chest. Cancer. In the wake of the diagnosis, as life ground to a halt and treatment started, the three friends reconnected. The idea of starting a band was floated and tentative steps were made. A room in Camden Studios was acquired, and here they started to open up musically. Danny shared sketches written about his father, his grief and ways of coping and soon the three started writing their own material together.
The First 3 EP are the first 3 songs to come out of these sessions. Brutally honest, they capture first hand their experience. Thanks A Million, was the first song they wrote, juxtaposing the self-pity of a post binge depression with the nostalgia and escapism that only being in the room with your friends can bring.
“Thanks A Million” itself isn’t a straightforward grief song; it’s about falling into familiar self-destructive loops and the weird, very Irish emotional deflection baked into that phrase. There’s a line about being stuck in a box room while your friends check in on you, and responding “I’ll be right here, thanks a million”, which kind of says everything about avoidance, humour, and friendship in one go. Friendship as a form of survival, told through one song rather than a full band intro.
Orang Utan deals with a different type of escapism, trying to make yourself feel better by doing all the wrong things.
Finally Chewing Gum, deals with grief and the moments along the way that define you.
Both really great songs. Gristly, muscly music and raw emotion.
Orangutan is not the most original video – Benefits have made similar – but the fucking guitar sound is visceral and majestic – two words that rarely go together.
Chewing Gums defining moment comes 35 seconds into the song. The first words sung, well bellowed… SOME – ONE. HELP – ME!
As someone probably twice the age of the band members I’m very familiar with the death of friends and family. I have the Grim Reaper on speed-dial. Also, I survived cancer. It is NOT always a ‘death sentence’. It’s not a barrel of laughs though. It’s fuckin’ tedious actually. Lots of waiting around, feeling shit. And lots of dark humour – with other patients in the waiting rooms- and laughs with the NHS staff – who are mostly brilliant (in my experience). Death and cancer do kinda define you as a person and oddly become a part of your being and outlook.
When I asked / how much time / i have left to live my life / She said son, only God knows the answer to that / From that point / in my eyes / I was sure that I would die / and that I hadn’t got, hardly any time left.
Despite being the most pessimistic person I know, strangely I felt the opposite with my diagnosis. I refused to accept for one second I might die. Out of sheer pig-headedness. Everyone has there own unique reaction to the diagnosis, and its the nearest and dearest who suffer more – because there is nothing they can say or do to help.
It was March the agent sent me the first song. I wanted to review the whole EP rather than just Thanks A Million. When he contacted me in June he said
There’s actually been a crazy development in the cancer story for Conor, when he was diagnosed in 2024, it was inoperable, but within the last month, he’s been called to Belgium to have a surgery to attempt to remove most of his cancer, a surgery that didn’t exist two years ago. He insisted we push on with the promo, and while out of action right now, he has made it though the surgery and is recovering as we speak. Got the full EP here for you….
DIVIL are not a band you are gonna see on the live circuit this year – but fingers-crossed next year, and on the basis of this EP, these three songs, they are a new band that are gonna make their mark. Rock music with an intensity and a purpose, a cathartic drive and energy drawn from the depths of despair. Songs about friendship, birth, school, cancer, and survival.
All words Ged Babeywith PR content in italics.
Birth, School, Cancer, Survival… is a riff on the Godfathers song Birth, School, Work, Death.
If any other bands send me videos where they are performing in grey jogging bottoms they will not be written about. I’m serious. This was a one-time only exception. (Ged Babey – trouser standards will be upheld.)
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