ALBUM REVIEW: Delusions Of Grandeur – Thumper

With two drummers, three guitarists and a bass player, Dublin’s THUMPER have all the tools they need to make one hell of a racket. Of course, they do exactly that on their debut full-length Delusions Of Grandeur, which arrives this Friday via EMMS. It’s a noisy, intense and chaotic record, but also one with some serious pop sensibilities at its heart. DUA LIPA perhaps not, but there’s still plenty to grab onto amid this sextet’s impressive command of commotion.

One of the first things you’ll probably notice about Delusions Of Grandeur is that this is a long record. With seven of its ten tracks topping five minutes – many by some distance – it runs across a full hour’s runtime. Fortunately, it doesn’t really feel anywhere near that. The energy remains steady and high throughout, with this driven along especially by the band’s double drum attack. It helps too that THUMPER can really deliver on a massive hook, as they do time and time again here. Second track Ad Nauseam – released as a single back in 2020 – provides an early and obvious example, its simple chorus of “you’re going on and on and on and on…” drilling straight into listeners’ brains for an instant live-ready sing-along.

Admittedly, Ad Nauseam is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sing-alongs on Delusions Of Grandeur. 25 which follows is infinitely catchy, while last year’s single The Loser sinks its indie-tinged hooks in with ease. The latter definitely makes for an overall highlight on the record, its barnstorming energy driving along a self-deprecating slacker anthem. It’s a lyrical theme that rears its head a lot on Delusions Of Grandeur, with the band casting as much of a witheringly defeated eye at themselves as they do at anyone else. On seventh track Topher Grace, for example, vocalist Oisin Leahy Furlong predicts: “If I left, this party continues without me.”

Given the record’s fulsome runtime, THUMPER definitely aren’t afraid to take their time with their ideas here. In fact, they often lean quite heavily into lengthy psychedelic jamming, including not least on the KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD-esque conclusion to the aforementioned 25. It’s one of the record’s finest moments, one that builds and builds with mesmeric intensity before landing on a final earworm chorus.

Rounding out the record comes an apparent trilogy of tracks in (i) Overbite, (ii) Ghost and (iii) Down In Heaven. Aside from the Roman numerals in their names, it’s not entirely clear what groups these songs specifically, but it is safe to say that they end the record on a high, particularly the latter two. Overbite feels probably most in keeping with what’s come before – another noisy and dynamic indie rock banger; Ghost on the other hand is completely instrumental, a near-eight-minute slow-build that touches on almost post-rock-esque euphoria. Finally, there’s Down In Heaven, which is easily the record’s most poignant and powerful moment of all. Stretching well towards nine minutes in length, it builds from acoustic guitar-led melancholy to complete melodic catharsis, with all this anchored by the unforgettably mournful mantra of “I did it to myself”.

Ultimately, there is so much to like about Delusions Of Grandeur. As infectiously catchy as it is wild and raucous, this is an all-round accomplished and gripping debut. There’s enough variation here to keep things interesting, and its hooks are absolutely undeniable. Whether it will fully cross into mainstream consciousness is anyone’s guess, but given the success of bands like IDLES and FONTAINES D.C. in recent years you’d be a fool to write off this uniquely fascinating six-piece.

Rating: 8/10

Delusions Of Grandeur is set for release on March 18th via EMMS.

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