Blending a grungy rock style with a full on wall-of-sound live set up, Bitch Falcon stormed onto the Irish music scene a few years ago with stonking, hard-hitting singles like ‘TMJ’ and ‘Clutch’, too heavy for substantial radio play, but capturing the heart of the rock scene.

Having taken five years from their debut singles to releasing an album, ‘Staring At Clocks’, though – a time period that has seen the band undergo a line up change and a solidification of the style – Bitch Falcon’s debut full-length feels like a considered launch.

“We feel like we’ve really solidified our writing process ahead of the album,” vocalist Lizzie Fitzpatrick explains ahead of the release, referencing the various styles the band take on board, including a growing poppy edge before joking, “we’ve gone soft.”

“You can hear a little bit of [new-ish member] Barry’s black metal on some of the album tracks,” drummer Nigel Kenny continues. “There’s some interesting guitar picking on there from some of his ideas, so you might hear a little bit of that.”

“We recorded the album with Deaf Brothers, at the Meadow Studio out in Delgany,” Kenny says. “They did the No Spill Blood albums, BATS and so on. It was recorded over ten days and then sent to Alex Newport in Los Angeles, who’s a Grammy nominated mixing artist who works with The Mars Volta and so on, established bands we really like.”

“That helped develop the sound, Alex put a particular vibe into it which we really like. It made a huge difference in terms of capturing the craziness and allowing it to be heard in the way we wanted.”

“I guess it’s all on the rocks in terms of what happens now,” Fitzpatrick says. “We’d have loved to have done a tour or gone to SxSW and gone to Europe and Asia next year, which would have been amazing, but we can’t have those things anymore. If it gets a good listenership, and does well in reviews and so on, and people enjoy it, I think that’ll be enough. I hope people enjoy it, and it’s not too small, it spreads out a bit and lots of people hear it.” 

“We’d really like a touring cycle, eventually, for it,” Kenny adds. “We had everything lined up to head off for maybe six months on the bus to play to as many people as possible. I hope we can still do that.”

“In a sense, it’s been nice to take a breather away from the ‘rat race’ of music that we’ve been part of for the last five or six years in the build up to the record. We’ll be straight back at it when things are up and running again, but it’s been a chance to put your head up, and consume other people’s music,” Fitzpatrick says.

“We’ve been practising, writing, watching movies and so on. For years it was always about preparing something, so that’s actually been really nice,” Kenny says. “It’s not competition, in a sense, as it all serves the same interests, but you always have a release schedule, and want to keep in people’s minds and ears. To not have to do that has been great. But staying like that for a year or more, that’s not so great.”

“Every year we’ve kind of moved up and ticked some boxes personally and so on. I really miss that, and hanging out with other bands and people before and after gigs. The community has gone,” Fitzpatrick says. 

“The name makes some people think we’re a novelty band,” Kenny adds. “It causes a lot of problems with the BBC, they have to do stuff like cough when they say it or say ‘B Falcon’. There are definitely a lot of people who like the song but can’t say the name of the band on the radio which is pretty annoying as you hear it on Croft’s all the time.”

Bitch Falcon are one band you definitely won’t be hearing at Croft’s, but at the heavier end of the rock scene, they’re all set to lay down a stark, crunching marker.

Bitch Falcon’s debut album Staring At Clocks was out on November 6

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