O’Reilly’s Swings pop songs are heavily influenced by the likes of Bright Eyes - who he has covered during past gigs - The Beatles, Smashing Pumpkins, being in relationships and watching the world around him through a glass half full perspective.
Swings has four tracks, two of which are the old Star Crossed Enemies’ songs Black Magic and Mira, as well as O’Reilly solo favourite One Thing To Do Before You Die and one completely new track, A Poem I’ll Sing Out Loud. And, of course, all four songs include the ‘woos’, the ‘aahs’, the ‘oohs’ and the ‘woo-hoos’ that have become such a distinctive hallmark of O’Reilly’s song writing over the past two and a half years.
Black Magic, the EP’s opener, is easily the loudest song on the album. White’s chord sequence and preceding repetitive riffs combine with O’Reilly’s drums and chorus ‘woooo-oooo-aoooo-oooo’ vocals (if that’s spelled correctly I should get seven free EPs) to grab the listener’s attention from the beginning.
From then on, Swings becomes progressively mellower, with Mira being poppier than Black Magic. White abandons the electric guitar here to go for the acoustic, suiting the nature of Mira perfectly. The entire rhythm of the song is uplifting, even if the lyrics being sung by O’Reilly aren’t so at times. Mira is a catchy song and is available to listen to on the Bribry is Sky High MySpace page.
One Thing To Do Before You Die is an O’Reilly classic and will be familiar to all who know O‘Reilly’s music from his previous solo incarnations. There have been two demo recordings of this song before now and the only real difference between this version and the previous two - besides sound quality, which is better on the Swings version - is that the new version is played at a faster pace than before.
Bribry is Skyhigh performs One Thing to do Before You Die at Pravda. Source: ReggieBlinker YouTube channel.
The little improvements and changes made in the song since its first demo appearance can be heard in the Swings version, as well as the confidence and experience O’Reilly and White now have to execute it exactly the way they want it. Add the excellent production of the EP as a whole to these things and it gives you the best, and hopefully definitive, recording of One Thing…
Swings ends on a short but happy note with new track A Poem I’ll Sing Out Loud - a definitive love song written by a musician who’s niche is writing love songs, as O’Reilly himself acknowledges in the very first lyric. The acoustic finger picking rhythm is addictive in a sense and, combined with the use of the glockenspiel, you can’t help but bop your head along with it and smile. A synthetic cello is thrown in at the song’s end to wrap up the EP nicely. This song is the happiest of the four tracks and has been dubbed by O’Reilly himself as the new One Thing.
Swings was produced by Andy Knightley who has worked with the likes of Sinead O'Connor, Bell X1, The Rags and Damien Dempsey in the past. Knightley doesn’t miss a sound here and his experience has benefited O’Reilly’s effort greatly, maximizing the potential of each of these songs.
The EP is to be released on iTunes towards the end of September, with the hard copy - featuring cover art drawn by White and Carol Broderick - being available on October 1st in Road Records. Bribry is Sky High perform in the Cobblestone in Smithfield this Sunday, September 13th. Check it out if you’re in the mood to smile to yourself.
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