For the Major League Soccer team, see New England Revolution.

The Revs are an indie rock band based in Kilcar, Donegal, Ireland. The band consists of three childhood friends: Rory Gallagher (named after blues guitarist Rory Gallagher, and who had previously had a 3-year long solo career, which included the release of country-tinged album 20th Century) on bass guitar and vocals, John McIntyre (guitar, vocals) and Michael O' Donnell (drums, percussion). They formed on the eve of the millennium with an aim to change the face of Irish music.

Early on, their material contained attacks on manufactured pop, including the live favourite 'Louis Walsh' (Louis Walsh being the svengali behind embarrassing exports Six, Westlife and Boyzone, amongst others. Their debut album SonicTonic achieved gold status, despite being a live release, and drew comparisons to The Police, Weezer and Supergrass.

They followed this up with the stand-alone singles Tuesday, Monday and Loaded before the debut studio album Suck in February 2003, with the message behind it ("The Revs suck") being a modest nod to the non-fans. This album (recorded in Trackmix Studios, Clonsilla, Dublin) shook the charts and delighted their hardcore group of supporters, who had assembled en masse due to their constant touring all over Ireland and the UK. The songs are an eclectic mix of punk rock, surf guitars, pop-rock and indie, similar to Pixies, Radiohead and Muse (band), with paranoid lyrics (influenced by Bill Hicks) expressing their distaste with the world, but insisting that it's still a nice place.

Taking a large break, during which they decided upon a change of direction, wrote dozens of songs and roadtested them in small venues around Ireland, they returned in November 2004 with a sample of the audio pleasures to come: a new single Broken?, backed with Ode to Saint Susie, Patron Saint Of Supermarkets. They now sounded like Flaming Lips, Big Star and The Smiths, with their love of Radiohead still shining through, and this release confused the public who had dismissed them. During the months that opened up 2005, they recorded their third album, The Revs, in Malmo, Sweden with the producer behind Franz Ferdinand and The Cardigans, Tore Johansson.

This LP was released on October 14 2005, following the single Time Slippin in September.

VIDEO

• Fabchannel.com - Free video stream of Revs concert at Paradiso, Amsterdam