Sinead O'Brien remains purposeful on debut album Time Bend And Break The Bower

Jutting and jarring, the post-punk wave is one we’ve all become accustomed to. But where some bands are falling away from such umbrellas, the timing of O’Brien’s debut feels right. It’s fresh enough to feel like a new take yet familiar enough to find its audience, which, if you are one, you’re in for a treat.

Its singular aim is in providing the Irish songwriter with a platform to propel her poetic musings to a new level. Guitars come cutting through with ordinance, growling synths rumble, and drums roll to lay the iron grid work, but the most pivotal player in this orchestra of the damned is silence. Filling those gaps between O’Brien’s words, when all else is gone, the images take over – flashing into life with the profundity of a late-night strobe – it’s the place of these first few breaths where O’Brien becomes Frankenstein, and Time Bend her monster.

Flowing consistently throughout, O’Brien’s voice swoons when required, but always remains directed and focused on orchestrating the imagery – wrapping words together to build the pictures she sets in stone with her poetic style. Capturing a unique look at the world outside of her window – the comings and goings, and intricate relationships in between – her words are heavily loaded as they stream through with the weight of a broken dam, even when she’s commanding you to dance (“Like Culture”).

Time Bend is stylistic and clever – sometimes it can feel self-aware – but before long a new line hooks you in, or an indie-disco guitar line seeps through to rub down any wrong-doing. There’s no doubt that the wait for O’Brien’s debut has been worth it. She’s an artist who has a vision, and has not only executed it but found a new way of kickstarting the heart of a genre that quickly became a dead horse to be flogged whilst commanding a new space of her own.