8/10

Some bands ease into their first full-length. Muddshovel do the opposite. 'Little White Hair' detonates, ripping the door off its hinges and declaring, loudly and gloriously, that Ireland has a new heavy force worth losing your voice over.

From the opening seconds, the trio make it clear that subtlety is optional, but honesty is not. Their sound is dense, jagged, and soaked in the kind of lived-in emotion that can’t be faked. These songs breathe like creatures born in dim rooms, late nights, and frayed nerves. Everything here feels wrestled from the gut.

'Over the Line' comes charging out first, delivering a blast of adrenaline, grit, and exhale-all-the-anger-you’ve-been-holding energy. It’s a victory lap written by people who’ve crawled through their losses to earn it. Then comes the wild spiral of 'Third Time Today', a collision of folklore and fear that feels strangely ancient and sharply modern all at once. Muddshovel excel at blurring the line between real life and ghost stories, and this track is their most hypnotic example yet.

But if any moment solidifies their emotional depth, it’s 'Deep Fried Soul'. This track is a dizzy, burning descent into bad habits and internal chaos, unveiling a song that manages to be ferocious and wickedly self-aware at the same time. At the album’s core is 'Little White Hair', offering a slow unravelling where the façade slips and the truth steps into the room. It’s stark, haunting, and quietly devastating, the point where Muddshovel stop roaring and start whispering, only to hit even harder.

What makes this album truly exhilarating is that Muddshovel already sound like they know exactly who they are. It’s gritty, imaginative, unvarnished, and utterly alive. With this record, Muddshovel break through the floorboards, leave smoke in their wake, and carve out a place in Irish rock that feels both inevitable and hard-won.