Hailing from the rural Irish pastures of Mayo and Wicklow, Nerves are a product of their surroundings. It’s easy to romanticise this; on the surface such places seem to be charming picturesque landscapes perfect for postcards. But under such tourist friendly façades lies something more. Or more fittingly, very little.
Much like to the more rural towns in the UK, these places offer nothing to the young generation. The development of infrastructure is neglected in favour of larger cities. Housing is either extortionate, inadequate or simply non-existent. There is no opportunity. And ultimately, the only options are to either join the exodus leaving or remain and watch these towns hollow out before crumbing into the emerald sea. Nerves, with firsthand experience, document this with their new EP Iarmhaireacht in a way that’s visceral and intimate to an almost uncomfortable degree.
Released August 15th, produced by Dan Fox of Gilla Band and with its Gaelic name translating to ‘that uncanny loneliness you feel at first light’, Iarmhaireacht feels like the destruction of both the future and the inner psyche. Across its five tracks, Nerves authentically channel the feeling of the inherent loneliness of languishing alone, watching loved ones leave for greener pastures and the substance-induced self-destruction it invites.
It’s a chilling record, one animated with howling noise rock disorientation, unhinged sprechgesang and desolate post rock ambience reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It’s also a release that threads this modern crisis to history, it’s archival samples from times past showing how this isn’t just a novel crisis, but a repeating one now embedded within the rotting sociopolitical foundation of modern day Ireland. Across it’s run time one can easily feel the detached bliss of slipping into lonely oblivion from substance abuse or mourning a lost future once promised in youth, resulting in a record that’s relatable as it is darkly immersive.
With Iarmhaireacht released this Friday, we got in touch with vocalist and guitarist Kyle Thornton to get acquainted with the band.
For those new to Nerves, how would you briefly describe the band?
We are a noise rock band from Mayo and Wicklow in Ireland.
Musically and topically, what are your primary inspirations?
I suppose musically we are influenced a lot by bands like Godspeed!, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth but we take a lot of cues from other genres like techno, ambient music, goth stuff like Bauhaus, industrial music and sometimes more straight ahead indie. It all gets put through the Nerves blender and comes out on the other side in different ways. Topically we get a lot of inspiration from the bands I just mentioned but also Irish culture and literature as well.
You’re about to release your new EP Iarmhaireacht, how are you feeling about that?
Very good, obviously a little bit apprehensive because you always want these things to go down well but I think we are all really proud of what we’ve put together here, as a follow up to our first EP we all feel like its way more consistent sonically and thematically.
I understand a lot of the record stems from the issues facing Ireland right now, such as mass emigration, a mental health crisis and a worsening housing crisis. Could you elaborate on how you approached such themes and how they shaped the sound of the EP?
So when it comes to the subject of each song in particular they all stem from issues and stories that are very personal to me and my life, however a lot of the things I speak about in the lyrics are shared with many young people in Ireland and are results of issues that face the country at large, so we try and frame them in a way that sheds some light on the problems the country faces. We mostly do this through our use of samples from old Irish media that will hopefully give a larger cultural context to the things I speak about in the lyrics. In a country with mass emigration, inflation, housing crises and corruption, of course substance abuse and mental health issues will follow that.
It almost sounds like this record is a musical mirroring of such issues and the effect it can have on one’s psych. Is this something you agree with, was it intentional?
I definitely would agree with that although I’m not entirely sure it was intentional at the time of writing the songs individually. I think it’s something that dawned on us afterwards and then it became a mission to try and make the project a mirror of these issues.
The EP also contains samples of RTE newsreels and tapes documenting Ireland’s 20th century past. What’s your thought on the link between the issues facing Ireland then and the issues the country is facing now, and how did it influence the record?
Ireland has gone through waves of issues like these since we gained our independence, there were mass emigration crises in the 50s, 70s, 80s, late 2000s and again now. It feels like the country has resigned itself to letting this happen. Every time I go home to Mayo I hear of more and more people I knew from school emigrating to Australia or other places because there is simply nothing keeping them in rural Ireland. Even we are part of this, we still live in Ireland obviously but we all made the decision early on that if we wanted to do our own thing then leaving rural Ireland was kind of the only option. Thats why it’s so interesting to find a sample talking about emigration or lack of infrastructure in the 1950s because they way they talk about it, they may as well be narrating the same story in 2025.
It influenced the record in terms of allowing us to articulate the larger cultural context of the lyrics but also just because its something that never strays far from my mind and I feel like it will be baked into most of the stuff I do artistically.
Personally, what’s your experience with navigating or dealing with such issues?
I’ve experienced many friends leaving the country in the last couple of years and that’s been hard in ways but also completely understandable. I, like most other young people living in this country am constantly living on a knife edge financially and it’s very difficult to see a path towards more security for me in the foreseeable future. That can lead to a lot of pessimism and you can start to throw your life away because of it with drink or whatever else. I managed to turn that around for myself thankfully but not before I fucked up a couple of things irreparably. I’m definitely in a better position in my life now than I was 3 years ago but I still strive for more.
It’s an incredibly intense release, one full of tension and dread. Was creating it a cathartic experience?
It was defiantly very cathartic, from writing the music and the lyrics to recording the whole thing, I definitely got a few demons out. It continues to be cathartic still because of just how intense these songs are to play live?
Daniel Fox produced the EP, what was it like working with him?
Working with Dan in a breeze. He’s a real engineer type and is amazing at just getting the best sounds out of us and is incredible when it comes to mixing. We have worked with each other for a while now and we’re at the stage where he really gets us and knows exactly what to do to get the sound that we had in our heads. He’s also brilliant craic to be around in the studio. Despite what the bleakness of our records would suggest, we are having a lot of fun while recording them.
Finally, what do you want people to take away from Iarmhaireacht?
I’d like them to gather that even if you find yourself in a rather fucked up part of your life and things are looking bleak, you do have it in you to turn it around. It won’t be easy but everyone has that inside of them if they strive for it.
Iarmhaireacht is released independently August 15th. Pre-save the record here.