We Cut Corners At The Button Factory – Review

“What happened?” drummer Conall Ó’Breacháin asks guitarist John Duignan after a false start to their second song of the night. It’s actually the only thing to go wrong on a night when We Cut Corners deliver a flawless performance to celebrate the release of their third album The Cadences of Others. The second time around there is no false start and the duo deliver a blistering version of ‘Toll Free’ that features some rollicking riffs as well as the band’s trademark vocal interplay and intelligent lyrics.

Withe the release of their third album, We Cut Corners now have a decent canon of work from which to choose a set from and they choose well. New material such as ‘The Middle Kids’ and ‘On Avoiding People’ fit in seamlessly with the older material. There are also some nice covers thrown in for good measure.

Ó’Breacháin slips a little bit of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ into the middle of ‘A Pirate’s Life’ while later in the set, Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Mandika’ gets the WCC treatment, featuring some lovely synth lines and an impressive vocal from Ó’Breacháin.

The band’s older material sounds better than ever. Duignan delivers some cracking, jerky guitar lines while Ó’Breacháin gets to work on the high hats during ‘Mammals’ and Duignan takes over lead vocal duties for ‘Best Friend’, a gloriously chaotic slice of garage rock. As always with We Cut Corners, the full sound that they manage to produce with just a guitar and drums is incredible to witness.

The whole set seems to go down well with the crowd, who sing along with gusto on old favourites such as ‘YKK’, ‘Go Easy’ and ‘The Leopard’, the latter of which closes out the main set before the duo return and wade into the crowd, acoustic guitars in hand to intimately serenade an appreciative crowd.

By the time the lads clamber back on stage to deliver a massive, driving version of ‘Blue’, it’s safe to say that this gig can be considered a triumph for one of the most interesting Irish bands around.