Bren Berry releases his debut solo album In Hope Our Stars Align on Jan 31st, 2025.
It is available on vinyl, CD or digital formats from all good record shops, Bandcamp or directly at https://brenberry.ie
The twelve songs on the album cover personal reflections on family, friendship, home, love, Dublin, resilience, music and creativity, and address some of the social and political crises that we are living through in these troubled times.
“I think of the album as a collection of love letters and protest songs which are layered with hope and an intentional sense of positivity. The album title is taken from “Fire Drill” and is inspired by Seamus Heaney’s lines “hope and history rhyme” and “hope for a great sea- change” from The Cure At Troy.”
The lead single from the album, “Bullet Proof” follows a lineage of widescreen, Americana classics like “Wichita Lineman” and “Everybody’s Talkin’.” It’s a lonesome love song seen through the lens of a down-on-his-luck and out-of-his-depth musician laden with infectious hooks, layers of zinging guitars and majestic strings. The rolling narrative finds Berry – tongue firmly in cheek – singing about love, booze, unpaid bills, landlords, sex, dancing, cars, tattoos, bullets and an iconic cast including Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Phil Lynott, Jimi Hendrix, Brando, McQueen, Johnny Cash, Bruce Lee and the Wrecking Crew.
“Bullet Proof” follows the current piledriving, environmentalist anthem “Knives (Heavy Metal Rain)” and a string of glorious big-hearted singles including “Winter Song,” “Hairpin Bends,” “Beautiful Losers,” “Come Alive,” and “Turn On Your Radio” – all of which lit up Irish airwaves with glistening choruses, addictive riffs, and a rare contemplative soulfulness.
In Oct 2020, Berry oversaw the release of a remastered vinyl edition of his band Revelino’ s self-titled 1994 debut album which stirred much excitement and went straight to No 1 in the Irish Indie Charts. Enthused by this enduring love for Revelino’s music, guitarist/backing vocalist Bren Berry did something he hadn’t done in a very long time, dusting off his guitars and slowly beginning to channel his reflections into intimate songs.
Song writing has always been an elusive mystery to me and I could never find my own singing voice. I was reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles on his 80th birthday, and decided that, rather than murdering one of his songs, I would honour the occasion by trying to finally crack the songwriting code. Something told me to drop the register of my voice, and everything just clicked into place for me. I found my voice in every sense of the word and wrote my first complete song – Black Satellite – which is a tribute to Dylan and New York and the great times my wife and I have had in that city including spending our honeymoon in the legendary Chelsea Hotel. I quickly followed it up with Bullet Proof and wrote around twenty songs over the following eighteen months.
I have no doubt that being surrounded by so many amazing musicians and so many great people in the music industry has rubbed off on me and resulted in an osmosis of some kind that has led to this creative breakthrough for me.”
The album was produced by Berry and Gavin Glass in Orphan Studios and mixed and mastered by Daniel James Goodwin in The Isokon, New York and Virginia. “I am extremely grateful to Gavin and Daniel who raised the bar so high and helped to make this record sound so great. Gavin also added so much of his musical brilliance along with a host of other amazing musicians including Binzer Brennan, Marc McCausland, Ciaran Tallon, Gavin Fox, Joe Doyle, Simon Farrell, Ciaran Byrne, Yvonne Tiernan, Rachel Grace, Danny Anderson and Martin McCann. Cormac Curran also arranged stunning strings for four of my songs which were performed by the wonderful Orphan Strings. I still can’t believe I’ve made a record after all this time away from making music. I feel very lucky to hit this creative streak and I gave the album everything. I am also so grateful to everyone who has been there for me along the way.”
