Gurriers' 'Nobody's Coming To Save You' Finds the Light by Turning the Riffs All the Way Up
Gurriers spent a long time on the road after their debut, and the second record sounds like a band that used it. Nobody’s Coming To Save You is meaner, tighter and considerably bigger — and the credit list explains a lot of the bigness.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Two producers, Mark Bowen of Idles and Loren Humphrey, split the work across Attica Studios in Donegal and Holy Mountain Studios in London, with Chris Fullard engineering. Charlie McCarthy’s bass and Pierce Callaghan’s drums are where the record’s signature trick lives. DIY’s Tom Morgan, giving it four stars, found the exact phrase for it: “Gurriers have landed on an oppressive, surprisingly groovy brand of grand, dark post-punk from which all the air’s been sucked out.” Oppressive and groovy at once is a rhythm-section achievement.
The Spatial Dynamics: John Congleton mixed it, and anyone who knows his work with St. Vincent and Swans will recognise the approach: enormous when it wants to be, and ruthlessly legible the rest of the time. Ben O’Neill and Mark MacCormack’s two guitars never turn into mud. Hot Press, 8/10, described the result as “comfort in huge choruses and eardrum-battering guitars” — the choruses stay intelligible precisely because the mix keeps making room for Dan Hoff.
Standout Performance
Dan Hoff, and the way the title track is built around him. Dork’s Harry Shaw described the opener starting “tense and rattling before growing into a much bigger beast” — a structure that only pays off if the vocalist can carry both halves. Hoff can.
Why It’s Certified
Because it is a heavy record with a spine, not a sulk. Morgan’s line is the whole case: “Gurriers aren’t cheap nihilists – they understand the human spirit and the vitality of kinship.” His summary — “A tense, exhilarating follow-up that digs even deeper into the dark, searching for signs of light.” Hot Press called it “a record about finding hope in hopeless situations” and “a triumph of towering riffs and thrilling hooks,” placing the band “firmly in the vanguard of Irish rock.” Shaw, four out of five, noted there is “no obvious point where the quality drops off” and that it is “an unusually easy record to stay engaged with.”
Ten tracks, no filler, closes on “Crybaby.”