There are five young men from Dublin – comprising the band Basht – who present their music like a shield to pop in front of their faces at the earliest opportunity. Their annual EPs – 2024’s Dirty White Lies and 2025’s Bitter and Twisted – paved the way for full debut album Poor Advice, which combines the level-headed surveying and impulsive action one must take when faced with constantly-developing real world horror.
An enduring problem that has spread to Ireland – or maybe it’s been there for a while; I’m not Irish – is the involvement of big business in central politics. Ireland’s uniqueness on the matter, which separates the country from the U.K, is the secular stronghold of government; church and state have been inseparable as long as ministers have been ministering, and in Basht’s own words, a generation has been shaped with guilt, silence, and obedience, whilst secularity has ended up uniting with those brewing conflict and selling weapons.
The band approaches its countrymen with sympathy – not the robots in charge but everyday folk. A light touch treats the early stages of Poor Advice to an eerie quietude; Dive gently distracts itself from its own paranoia with a Sound of Music reference, whilst Perfume laments a relationship concurrently with governmental failure. But Terror TV hypes Basht up, sick of any prior calmness, to plummet feet-first into the heart of the matter; no average Joe was born to be our political opposition; they are victims of media spin, governmental spin, and however glorious those with enough power or sway might consider the drop of a bomb. The song isn’t full Idles, but it’s close; impatient, bad-mannered with good intent, freeing and danceable.
Basht will strike violently, aligning itself with modern post-hardcore ideals; Circadia’s hard build, its screaming, atmospheric guitars and drum thrashes; Kids Vs Guns’ waltzing, swaying lament of doomed youth in an evil world. But the album is well-thought-out, seeking answers, attempting its own. Superchurch epitomises the album’s bond of emotional sincerity and learnedness; a slowcore eulogy that surveys the damage done by capitalist churches; the damage done to Ireland, the damage done to modern Catholicism in Ireland. One might consider it an anthem only of defeatism, but its sincerity makes it the most uplifting gem you’ll hear in rock music in 2026.
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