You could say Declan McKenna’s career took off shortly after his appearance at the 2015 Glastonbury Festival as winning the Emerging Talent competition.
Well, it has been busy and Declan McKenna is wasting not time getting his message across, even if it did have the brakes put on during COVID and the resulting lock-down. Frustrating and more than a little annoying but it became an opportunity to stockpile new music and release his 2nd album, Zeros in September of 2020.
Since the world emerged from the comparative darkness of raging pandemics, Declan McKenna put out a third album, What Happened To The Beach? in 2024. And the momentum resumed.
Declan McKenna writes his own songs, but is supported by a band on tour currently consisting of Isabel Torres (guitar), Henry Pearce (keyboards), Linus Fenton (bass) and Ben Limmer (drums), although he has previously played all of his own instruments. In terms of the development of his musical style, he has said he would most like to emulate David Bowie’s career.
BBC News called “Brazil” an extraordinarily mature song for a 16-year-old songwriter. Matt Wilkinson at NME called it “one of the best songs” of 2015, and had high praise for McKenna’s second single, “Paracetamol”, as well. Jon Lyons of ThisNewBand.com called “Brazil” “a catchy song no doubt”, and also noted that it was “a sharp critique on sports, money and power.”
Some music critics have tempered their praise of McKenna. Matt Wilkinson called McKenna’s London gigs surprisingly good, if “rough around the edges”. Jon Lyons has observed that as of November 2015, McKenna’s songs seemed to indicate an artist still experimenting with bands and styles of music which have influenced him. He felt McKenna was still “searching for his own sound right in front of the crowd. An artist is being born note by note.” Andy Welch, music critic for the Bristol Post, said McKenna was “one to watch”, displaying “lots of early, ragged promise”.
2024 and things are proceeding along smoothly, as is evidenced by this performance, recorded at Naarm/Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena on December 8th, 2024.
2025 looks to be more of the same – and we’re lucky.
Dive in and have a sample.
