Artist to watch: One Day International

As I recently hinted in one of my SXSW posts, One Day International would soon be featured on Knox Road. I bet you didn’t expect this soon though! Well, I’m so enamored with them that I couldn’t wait any longer to write about the Irish quintet from Dublin, with whom I’ve recently been in touch.

One Day International is Matt Lunson on vocals, Cormac Curran on piano, Danny Snow on bass, Ross Turner on drums, and Eimear O’Grady on cello (see, now you know why i love them – there’s piano and cello involved…and they’re Irish.) The group released their debut album Blackbird (produced by Bell X1 and The Cake Sale guru Brian Cosby) in October of 2008 and has been making waves ever since. Their new single “Little Death” has been getting a ton of radio play overseas, to which my response is, that is totally and completely unfair and makes me want to cry. Why can’t the U.S. have such awesome radio music?? I’ll probably move to Ireland just for that reason.

Moving on, One Day International began writing and performing together in 2007 having come together through mutual acquaintances. They are incredibly multi-talented – O’Grady even finds the time to act on stage and in films while maintaining her presence in One Day International. Having played some live shows together to start, they decided to take a step back in order to look forward, and cut down on the live shows to work on the 11 song Blackbird.

As far as the music goes, One Day International creates swooping melodies which manage to overwhelm listeners into a state of complete awe. With a tender, simple yet indelible sound, the band works their way under your skin, leaving you mesmerized and motionless to listen to their beauty. Cello and piano together can rarely go wrong, not to say that One Day International doesn’t truly perfect the combination, which along with the other instrumentation makes for an affective symphony of sound. The heartfelt lyricism further expands the glory through which One Day International works. If this wasn’t enough of a glowing review, have a listen to these mp3s. My words can’t really do the music justice.