Falling Slowly (The Frames)

So the Guardian wants to know about our undiscovered musical treasures. If I told you that the missing link between the current batch of pan-ethnic troubadours (Bonnie Prince Billy, Damien Rice, Sufjan Stevens) and the epic noisemeisters of the 90s (Pixies, Nirvana, Flaming Lips) was an Irish band whose lead-singer played Outspan Foster in Alan Parker’s ‘The Commitments’ and had Jeff Buckley pitching in as his roadie, you’d tell me to feck off back to Shamrocksville.

But Glen Hansard and The Frames are this band, and ‘For The Birds’ is this album. Their new one, 'The Cost', ain't half bad either.

I’m not Irish, I’m certainly no Bonophile, and I don’t need obscurities as an external validation of cool. I just know that if this album doesn’t make your secret weapons list, we may as well remove the word ‘ecstasy’ from the dictionary and replace it with ‘critical consensus’.

Falling Slowly, The Frames [LISTEN]