An Dara, Le Deuxi\u00e8me, el Segundo\u2026 Kneecap’s second album Fenian is one of the most anticipated albums of 2026. To mark the release, 2fm\u2019s Dan Hegarty looks at some other sophomore albums by Irish acts from the recent and distant past.<\/p>\n
R\u00d3IS \u2013 MO L\u00c9AN (2025)<\/p>\n
Like Goldfrapp\u2019s Felt Mountain in 2000, MO L\u00c9AN by R\u00d3IS was one of 2024\u2019s most individual and sonically adventurous albums. While compared to albums by Katie Kim and Lankum, it is noticeably different yet equally memorable.<\/p>\n
If you subscribe to the idea that music can take you places, MO L\u00c9AN could take you from areas of tranquillity to parts unknown. There are so many sounds and moments on this album; Oh Lovely Appearance Of Death and Feel Love are two favourites at present.<\/p>\n
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n David Holmes \u2013 Let\u2019s Get Killed (1997)<\/p>\n You could describe this album as David Holmes\u2019 soundtrack of New York City. Featuring sound bites from a trip to the NYC, Holmes brought us one of the most interesting albums from the late 1990s.<\/p>\n This album and Endtroducing\u2026 by DJ Shadow would help to shape a great deal of the music that would arrive in the years that followed. Try to sit or stand still while listening to the grooves that are transmitted from the track Rodney Yates can be a challenge. In every sense, this album is a sonic adventure.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Sprints \u2013 All That Is Over (2025)<\/p>\n All That Is Over was released in what seemed like a fortnight after their debut (it was actually just over one year and nine months). Their debut Letter To Self was one of the albums of 2024, and All That Is Over kept this trend going by being one of the finest albums of 2025.<\/p>\n You can hear the experience of a band that has toured extensively on this album. The moody opening track Abandon draws you in until it exploded into life with tracks like Need and the anthem Rage. Are there better bands than Sprints right now? If there are, there are few.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Messiah J & The Expert \u2013 Now This I Have To Hear (2006)<\/p>\n Messiah J & The Expert unleashed their second album Now This I Have To Hear in October 2006. If you were fortunate enough to have seen them live at the time, tracks from the album like Abandon Ship and Place Your Bets quickly became live favourites.<\/p>\n Time has a habit of slipping by sometimes too quickly, so the thought of this album being 20 later this year is difficult to comprehend. Tracks like When The Bull Gores The Matador and All The Other Girls sound well when they\u2019re played alongside the best of what\u2019s happening today, both in Ireland and internationally.<\/p>\n Now This I Have To Hear by Messiah J & The Expert<\/p>\n Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor \u2013 I Do Not Want What I Haven\u2019t Got (1990)<\/p>\n 1990 was, in retrospect, a doorstep year. How, you might ask? It was the dawning of what we would come to know as grunge. It was also the year that Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor released I Do Not Want What I Haven\u2019t Got. The single Nothing Compares 2 U catapulted her career to a status as one of the biggest solo artists on planet Earth.<\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly not an album that relies on one song. Jump In The River and The Emperor\u2019s New Clothes are two of the other exceptional songs featured, while the beautifully sparse vocals on I Am Stretched On Your Grave are still as haunting 36 years on.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Meryl Streek \u2013 Songs For The Deceased (2024)<\/p>\n Meryl Streek\u2019s 2022 debut album made landfall like a tornado. His 2024 follow\u2011up Songs For The Deceased continued on a similar path, not taking a sideways step, with him telling things as he sees them.<\/p>\n Similar to the debut, there is heartfelt beauty amid the ferocity. His track Dad on the debut is one of the most beautiful tracks you could hear. On Songs For The Deceased he gives us the song Paddy, a tribute to his late uncle. It\u2019s a stunning track on an album that many will look back on in years to come as one of the albums of the times.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Lankum \u2013 Between The Earth and Sky (Rough Trade, 2017)<\/p>\n Between The Earth and Sky was the first album released under the name Lankum; however, the band had brought us Cold Old Fire as Lynched in 2014. With the success of Lankum\u2019s 2019 and 2023 albums The Live Long Day and False Lankum (both winners of Irish Album of the Year at the RT\u00c9 Choice Music Prize), it would be easy to overlook a fine album like Between The Earth and Sky.<\/p>\n Some music can transcend time in the sense that, if you did not know its history, you\u2019d struggle to place its year of creation. Tracks like The Townie Polka and Willow Garden are perfect examples of this. If you haven\u2019t listened to this album recently, set aside an hour; it will be time well spent.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Lethal Dialect \u2013 LD50 II (2012)<\/p>\n Lethal Dialect is an artist that hasn\u2019t yet received the applause and acclaim that he deserves. The gritty imagery in his lyrics has been written about on many occasions, but what\u2019s often overlooked is his lyrical flow, which he delivers in what seems like an effortless manner.<\/p>\n Arriving a year to the month after his debut LD50 album, part two of what would become a trilogy is equally engaging. Dark Horse and Black Magic are two of the most instant tracks, but the more you listen, others like Outstr8 (feat. G.I.) and Snakes And Reptiles grow to become favourites. LD50 II is an enthralling album by a true Irish treasure.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Telefis \u2013 A D\u00f3 (2022)<\/p>\n When news started to filter through that Jacknife Lee and Cathal Coughlan were collaborating on a project, it was greeted with understandable excitement. Delivering a debut album (a hAon) in March 2022, a D\u00f3 followed in October that same year.<\/p>\n When you listen to the album for the first time, you\u2019ll hear something new, something else that brings you back in time, and there\u2019s a strange familiarity about parts that\u2019s hard to explain. Cathal Coughlan would sadly pass away before they had the opportunity to complete a third album. We are incredibly fortunate to have the two Telefis albums and a number of EPs.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n Marxman \u2013 Time Capsule (1996)<\/p>\n With so much music being delivered to us through an increasing number of channels, it\u2019s understandable how some artists are in danger of being forgotten. Marxman\u2019s journey may have ended many years ago, but their musical power is captured in their two albums: 1993\u2019s 33 Revolutions Per Minute and Time Capsule, which arrived three years later.<\/p>\n Tracks like A Day In The Life Of and Heart Still Feel Pain illustrate how Marxman had developed over the years since their debut album. Touring with U2 and Depeche Mode served them well musically, but unfortunately Time Capsule would be their final album.<\/p>\n