Earlier this year Barry J Walsh plunged back into the murky waters of the music business for the first time in years with the release of his debut solo single ‘Rescue Me‘. Replete with thundering Revolveresque buzzsaw riffage, slashing guitars, nimble bass and blocks of cascading harmonies it was a breezy scorcher of a song, which was met with a resounding, giant Macca style thumbs up, particularly by the Powerpop/guitar pop fraternity.
Placed on the RTE Radio 1 Recommends playlist, it was championed by the likes of John Creedon and Tom Dunne on Newstalk where it made his weekly top ten. Copious radio play followed in Ireland while it was also played in heavy rotation on radio stations across America including Radio Free Americana and Too Much Too Soon radio where it featured on their Top Songs Playlist for the months of June and July. The song also featured on a spate of radio programmes syndicated around the world through stations including Mad Wasp Radio, Woody Radio, Belter Radio, Bombshell Radio, NWR, Mystery Train, WFMU and Howling Rock Radio. It was chosen by the influential Music N Gear blog as one of their hits of the summer, had weekly top ten placings in many music blogs including Sweet Sweet Music, was given the imprimatur of legendary music writer Steve Simels in his indispensable Power Pop blog, Dennis Pilon in his Poprock Record blog and was featured on Powerpop Bandcamp album Sundae Best curated by the discerning Ice Cream Power Pop Man.
Stylistically, “The Sound” fades in with a chainsaw riff before shuffling between the strut and stomp of Mod, four on the floor Northern Soul and the snark and swagger of New Wave, all the while surfing a wave of chugging guitars and stacked, heavenly Powerpop harmonies. It’s a gobstopper popsicle of a song so suck it and see.
Barry says“it’s a song which has a dig at those miserabilists who only ever light up a room when they leave it and are all take but no give. As an antidote to that I used the image of a Sally Army brass band marching around as a symbol of spreading some joy and as the song says, tenderness and goodness abound when you let your heart hear The Sound!”