Gurriers take a swipe at influencers in the world ending ‘Des Goblins’
Learning my trade as a music journalist, I was always waiting for that moment my idols spoke about. The moment when a band comes along and just cuts through the noise, touches on something so different it’s hard to describe without antiquated clichés. I always wondered if I would know what that was, or what it would feel like, as I waded through sea of alternative pastiche. Then I saw Gurriers play live, and I got it.
As the guitar line from ‘Top Of The Bill’ rang out over The Fleece in Bristol, I was struck by the subtle complexity of this Irish five-piece. This wasn’t your average band cobbling together a debut album to timidly mutter their take on the state of modern humanity. No this band knew what they wanted to say and exactly how to say it.
Soon after came ‘Des Goblin’. Like the sound of rolling thunder, the bass line rained over you with distortion before the drum beat stepped up to unleash fury. It was calm in the chaos, occupied by the vocalist Dan Hoff, who delivers an unflinching assault on modern society. Make no bones about it, the violent composition of this song isn’t softened by its context, nor should it be. The band find themselves with a platform in an acutely alarming social context, and there’s little to no time for the rousing rally cries of indie music gone by.
Every baseless reference to modern society you could think of is brought to the surface in ‘Des Goblin’. Spray tans and selfies all the way to Mary Kate and Ashley are thrown in this melting pot of criticism as Hoff delivers the sort of scathing assessment on vanity that laces almost every human interaction in 2025.
But it’s not a simple finger point and name call for three minutes. The subtle nuance that makes this band so immediately compelling is rooted in the wider context in which Hoff’s analysis is placed. On the opening verse, he wickedly sings, “When the world is burning, make sure to watch your tan line,” to help place his micro criticism into a macro context. As we quite literally stare impending doom in the face, the only thing distracting us seems to be the self-preservation of image for relatively baseless responses online.
While the subtelty of Hoff’s lyrics are certain to fly swiftly over the head of its subjects, he was given the opportunity to directly express the sentiment of the song, explaining to Louder Than War, “‘Des Goblin’ is about apathy and self-obsession in the face of impending destruction, particularly to do with the effects of climate change and war and people being too obsessed with themselves and their online personas to be able to see the wood for the trees. Musically, we pulled from further afield than previously, and really leaned in on our dance influences as well as a more fluent spoken word style vocal.”
Every fibre of this track is primal, and so it should be. Beneath the clever lyricism and texturally dense arrangement sits, at its very core, a song for the people. A song for the frustrated to yell in what increasingly feels like an echo chamber of bleakness and a song for the unenlightened to be shocked by, targeted by and at very best, inspired by. If you can’t get on board with that, then at least you’re left with the soundscape of a truly unique and compelling band.
