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Writer's pictureThe Sound Cafe

Multi Award-Winning Irish Musician Dom Martin Releases 'Belfast Blues' From His Upcoming Album


By Pati deVries. Photo Credit: Jim Heal.



Multi award-winning Blues/Rock/Americana/Roots artist Dom Martin is pleased to announce the release of “Belfast Blues” – the third single taken from his highly anticipated third studio album “Buried In The Hail” released by Forty Below Records on 22nd September 2023. The album is available to pre-order from https://fortybelow.ffm.to/buried-in-the-hail.


"Buried In the Hail," Dom Martin’s third studio album, will be released by Forty Below Records. Recorded at Golden Egg Studios in Ireland, the album was produced in Dublin by Grammy-Nominated producers Chris O’Brien and Graham Murphy and co-produced by Dom Martin. Very much steeped in the Roots, Americana, and the Blues genres, many of the tracks on the new album possess an almost cinematic theme.


Dom admits the new album is the first complete work that he’s recorded which he is 100% happy with and proud to release. Says Dom, “Buried In the Hail is the kind of album where the more you listen to it, the more you will get out of it.”


“Belfast Blues is about the days I spent playing the pubs and clubs in Northern Ireland,” says Dom. “Getting in fights, fires, getting robbed, getting drunk and beaten and just generally misbehaving. Being an animal. I was a different person back then.”


Dom will tour the new album throughout the UK and Ireland in October and November 2023 and Europe in June 2024.


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ALBUM TRACK BY TRACK IN DOM'S WORDS


1 - Hello In There So many songs could have been made with this one. In many ways this album is about the mind and losing it. It’s also about accepting its function. That you’re a little crazy and that’s okay! I used this for the intro as it’s such a nice calm before the storm compared to the 10-ton catastrophe on a 50-pound chain feeling from a few of the others on here. The children laughing in the background really made it. Children’s laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world and I’m glad I could include it in here. 2 - Daylight I Will Find It's all about the music. Sweet and simple really. There's no soft option for a good life. Life is full of challenges, and it'll drive you insane if you let it. It doesn’t matter what it is. You must find your own way through it and in one piece! Find your own daylight. We all have it! It’s you! Love yourself. 3 - Government I’m not too sure what to say about this one lyrically. I’m not political. I’m not on any side. I believe in right, and something is not right with the current world order running of things but as for the song, it has a very Celtic feel to it. My Irish ghosts, influences and banshees are howling the wind at my back as if to tell me to stay away from explaining this song faithfully. 4 - Belfast Blues a Belfast native. I love the place and the people. Just about every family has lost blood on the streets here yet it’s still a great place to witness. As we’d say there’s some characters about so there is! The song is about the days I spent playing the pubs and clubs in Northern Ireland. Getting in fights, fires, getting robbed, getting drunk and beaten and just generally misbehaving. Being an animal. I was a different person back then. I’ve become a lot younger now than I was back then and am finally living a life. 5 - Crazy I usually have at least one cover on my albums, and I wanted something I could relate to. I wanted something I could identify with, and the lyrics are just it! I played this completely broken down, out of my mind and titanically heartbroken. It was written by Willie Nelson and made big by the beautiful Patsy Cline. As a cover song I think I’ve done a pretty good alternative version that does hold a feeling of that crazy, deeper burning love and the loss of it that makes us all a little… unhinged. 6 - Unhinged This is a song about feeling unhinged by society, finding falseness in people who greet you with smiles and leave you with nothing. 7 - The Fall It’s hard to write any one thing about this song. The fall of society comes to mind. It’s about people and what we do to each other. The timelines of history. It’s not too late for us though to keep it positive and I still have tons of hope for the future. I’m not just talking about my own future. We all need to be a little nicer to each other, that’s all. It’s that easy. Or we are going to fall… 8 - Howlin’ I love the music of Howlin’ Wolf and I wanted to pay my respects to the man. This one’s for you Wolf! 9 - Buried In The Hail Going deep into your own mind can be dangerous. It can be difficult even to get to the dangerous part, you can get stuck in there. Your own locked room. I was stuck there for a while, but I got out, though I do go back from time to time. It’s about revisiting the horrors that I have encountered and the experiences I have lived through so far. I always leave these situations feeling a bit raw, a little edgy. You need to be broken into pieces with unknown substances and possess a bag of pure emotion to write a song like this. It’s an acceptance that a part of life has had to be cut off to make it out alive. For example, your leg is stuck, and the water is rising… cut it off! 10 - Lefty 2 Guns A short story of a hitman. He ends this show by killing the parts I can’t have anymore and he buries it all in the album cover and there’s nothing that can be done about it. 11 - Laid To Rest The last gasp of music, the outro. Again, like the intro, I could have gone any direction with this one. It has a certain end game feel to it, a finality. Everything may seem personal on this album and a lot of it is, but it wasn’t by design, as these songs are how I felt, and they are all played from the heart to heal and move on. A “refresh” of some sorts, to let go of the past as there is no future in history. Laid to rest says that symbolically with its silence.


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Dom Martin is a Belfast born multi-award-winning artist who, in 2019, first burst onto the music scene with a unique guitar style and voice, captivating audiences everywhere. BBC Radio 2 Blues Show presenter Cerys Matthews described his work as, “Absolutely wonderful stuff.”


Dom has made a meteoric rise in popularity in terms of today's music industry. His jaw dropping, entirely natural sounding and unforced, unschooled skill on acoustic guitar, matched with an authentic Belfast blues voice, draws comparisons to the likes of John Martyn, Rory Gallagher, Van Morrison, and Foy Vance.


Dom is equally adept on electric performances with his power trio, having won the UK Blues Awards’ “Best Instrumentalist Award” in 2022 and 2023. The trio is always an extremely popular addition to any blue rock festival. What’s more, Dom always likes to perform a Rory Gallagher song during his live shows, as he is strives to keep Rory’s music alive for a new generation.


Dom Martin continues to display his all-around ability with strong song writing, technical freestyle guitar playing, an incredible live show stage presence and accompanied by an all too rare strong male vocal.


Dom’s new album Buried in the Hail follows three previous highly acclaimed releases; Spain to Italy (2019), Live at the Harlington (2021) and A Savage Life (2022). He completed his “A Savage Life” album tour late 2022 in the UK and Ireland, 2022 also saw Dom play shows and festivals in America, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. He had featured, extensive interviews in the UK guitar magazines, ‘Guitarist’ and ‘Guitar Techniques.’


Earlier this year Dom completed a successful extensive UK Solo tour and visited Jersey to work alongside BMA award winning Blues Harpist Giles Robson. Dom also had a packed show in Romania and completed two French Festival tours with one festival show recorded for television.


In August 2023, Dom performed at various festivals including Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive Mediterranean III Cruise in Athens, Dubrovnik, and Santorini. Dom performed his own material acoustically and with his three-piece band and performed a set of Rory Gallagher songs. It is no surprise that Dom became one of the highlights on the cruise, alongside Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Cardinal Black, Blackberry Smoke, Eddie 9V, When Rivers Meet, King King, Bywater Call, Laura Cox, DeWolff, and many more artists from the contemporary Blues scene.


AWARDS

Instrumentalist of The Year - 2023 UK Blues Awards

Acoustic Act of The Year - 2022 UK Blues Awards

(Inducted into the UK Blues Hall of Fame for his third successive Acoustic Award)

Instrumentalist of The Year - 2022 UK Blues Awards

Acoustic Act of The Year - 2021 UK Blues Awards

Acoustic Act of The Year - 2020 UK Blues Awards

Best Solo and Acoustic Act - European Blues Awards 2019




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