Ritalin are a young and really exciting band from Wicklow and Kildare. Childhood friends, Gareth McDermott and Oscáir Murphy, joined forces with Leah Duane and Oscar Higgins to form Ritalin, who are currently busy gigging and learning their trade the honest way. At time of writing, they have three singles available to stream on Spotify.
I started with, (girl's gonna) Kill Me, released in February 2023. This is a fun pop rock song, nice and clean, very catchy. The type of song that reminds me of summer. A proper feel good song. Half way through the song, I heard some lead guitar working its way in from the background and I thought to myself, "are they about to mix this up and move away from a safe pop song?" You bet they were. There's a total change up mid song, one that is risky and brave. A move towards art and away from safety. The song breaks out of pop rhythm and guitars start shredding in impressive fashion before rock returns to pop, to bring it all home. This whole mid section, reminded me of the first New York Dolls album, not musically, but in the sense of, it sounds like they're just jamming and it's all about to fall apart at any moment, except it doesn't. The net result is something magic. So, (girl's gonna) Kill Me caught my attention but to be honest, I was still unsure where this band would take me. I then listened to another song called, Anymore, and very quickly I found out exactly where they would take me.
Anymore is a song released by Ritalin in January 2023. It's one of the best songs I have heard in a long time. An instant classic. It is so brilliantly arranged and produced and from the first listen, I was obsessed with it. The guitar tones in this song are just perfect and the vocal performance by Leah Duane is flawless and beautiful. It's a song that makes me feel emotional, in the best possible way. The vocal harmonies and back and forth trading of melody between the lead riff and twin vocals are wonderfully executed. This is the hook of the song and I've no doubt, this melody is already echoing around every live venue they play. If Ritalin can write more songs as good as this, then they are already well on their way to wherever their destiny may take them. As it stands, you obviously need a hell of a lot of luck to go with talent, to make it in the music business. But I have no doubt, the song Anymore by Ritalin is as good as anything you will hear from any band in any country. In my humble opinion, it's a song with international appeal. It'd be really cool on a movie soundtrack too.
Ritalan plan to release more original music later this year. They will be touring in the meantime, so catch them early and be part of something special.
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