Let’s get this straight from the get-go. Bailer doesn’t do “Happy-Hardcore“. Bailer doesn’t make “Bro-core” either … far from it [thankfully].
What you’ll find on ‘Disposable Youth‘ is a melting pot of boiling acid, loaded with enough vitriol to power the entire County of Cork, which is where they hail from.
From album opener, ‘Blackout’, we are served with the business end of a very fucking angry outlook on life, and as this beautifully brutal sonic journey blossoms with ‘Bastard Son‘, ‘Out of Frame‘, and the tooth-chipping ‘Cruel Master‘, it’s impossibly difficult not to fucking destroy everything that may be in your vicinity.
The aggression and red hot brutality continue to reek with the stench of contempt and retribution, as vocalist Alex O’Leary, vomits out his guts on every track over a landscape of utter chaos, that when combined, is simply formidable.
With production/engineer duties from Lewis Johns [Employed To Serve, Rolo Tomassi, Conjurer, Svalbard, Irist, Wallflower, Palm Reader, Loathe,], I simply can’t fault ‘Disposable Youth‘. It could very well be one of the most face-opening albums to emerge from the Irish underground/metal/hardcore [or whatever the fuck scene you want to call it] in a very, very long time.
If like me, you enjoy deep-diving on the elements that make up an album, Bailer offers so much on this debut. There is a huge amount of guitar work going on in the background from Chris Harte, who shifts from concrete, pummelling strides to schizophrenic eerie tri-tone scales, that intentionally drag Bailer’s music into gnarley and uncomfortable places.
If you need an example of just how fucking wonderfully brutal ‘Disposable Youth‘ is, just lend your ears to ‘No Apologies‘, and if you can resist the urge to pull the most grimacing of faces during the frantic end breakdown [that simply saws through your brain], then something is very wrong with you.
The low-end of David Cleere’s bass twinned with Sean Conway’s tight-as-fuck drumming just puts the cherry on the cake for this utterly fantastic debut. If Bailer doesn’t get to take their brutal live show to stages around the world, then there is truly something very wrong with the music industry.
Do yourself a favour and invest in this band. Buy their merch. Buy this album and tell your mates to do the same thing. 9/10
Pick up a very limited vinyl pressing of ‘Disposable Youth‘ via this link. For more information on Bailer, please visit this link.
Oran O’Beirne
www.overdrive.ie 2021
