Catch them before the fever sets in

Dublin indie folk group Villagers popped onto the scene back in 2010 with their critically acclaimed album ‘Becoming a Jackal’, and now, 11 short years later, this industrious ensemble is about to drop its fifth studio album.

This month, to the delight of their fans, band founder Conor O'Brien announced the new record ‘Fever Dreams’ along with a single and a tantalising string of tour dates across Ireland and the UK later this year.

The single, ‘The First Day’, is out now and comes complete with a video directed by the talented Daniel Brereton.

According to O’Brien, the song was inspired by a trip to the fabled Another Love Story festival in county Meath.

Brereton said: “The whole process was pretty collaborative with Conor. I think we both imagined a floatiness to the video, and obviously the title conjures up a lot of imagery and ideas.

“‘The first day of the rest of your life’. What does that look like? How does that feel? We were very lucky to shoot on film and have great casting and styling. Shooting during a pandemic is not easy, so I feel fortunate that we got to make it happen.”

Written over the course of two years, the main bodies of the ten songs that make up ‘Fever Dreams’ were recorded in a series of full-band studio sessions in late 2019 and early 2020.

During the long, slow pandemic days, O’Brien refined the song in his tiny home studio in Dublin before handing them over to David Wrench for mixing.

O’Brien says on the gestation of the album: “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.”

The album drops on 20 August and is now available to pre-order on dominomusic.com.

Villagers’ string of live tour dates kicks off on 12 October in Glasgow with 14 dates in total, including a gig in Cork Opera House on Tuesday 2 November. Tickets are now on sale at musicglue.com/villagers and at corkoperahouse.ie.