Post Ironic State are a Perth based quintet, Jai McCann (vocals), Josephine “Jojo” Hawley (synth), Calum Doug (guitar), Elliot Johnson (bass) and Ross Stewart (drums). Their music is best described as 80’s style New Wave/Post Punk.

They are on Perth College UHI’s student run label Vadana and have released three singles to date.

Tonight they play Conroy’s Basement as part of their tour supporting the release of Beck and Call.

They kick off their set with Uncompromised which is an immediate wall of sound, with a vocal delivery akin to Ian Curtis. This is followed by What the Hell is Going On which was the bands debut single, it has much more of a melody to it and is very much a twisted love song with the lyric “and I can’t be there every night, but I’ll try” bringing this to life.

Grin and Bear launches with a very rhythmic drum beat, setting the pace to the song and giving it a very hypnotic buzz. The Citadel follows on with a change of tact, as Jai, joins in on a single drum to outlay the beat of the song.

The Balhousie is a loose dedication to a flat shared in Perth by some band members, and is a little slower paced in terms of both the guitar melody and the vocal. Which is then completely contrasted by Plain Impressions which is a fast aggressive tune, with the vocal intensity being ratcheted up notch or two.

Beck and Call, the bands latest single is next and a haunting synthesizer is prevalent in the melody of this tune, and is their best of the evening in my view.

They end their set with Tim Burton which is a rabble rousing end to the set, with huge bass and drums and a double wall of noise to conclude the song.

Overall a noisy entertaining set, if you are a fan of Joy Division for vocal style and The Twilight Sad for noise levels then this is the band for you and as you can see below there are a still a couple of dates on their tour so get along and see them in action, you won’t be disappointed!

Setlist

1. Uncompromised

2. What the Hell is Going On

3. Grin and Bear

4. Citadel

5. The Balhousie

6. Plain Impressions

7. Beck and Call

8. Tim Burton

As I said the band are still on tour and can be caught at the following venues:

22nd February - Mucky’s in Perth

25th February - Hug and Pint Glasgow

In the meantime here is a sneak preview of them live: