The issue of length may be one that dominates e-mail spam, but Dublin rockers Large Mound have no such concerns when it comes to songwriting.  

Approaching the release of their third album ‘My Whole Life Is Have To’, they have maximised their policy of firing out sub three-minute stompers, welding alt-rock, classic metal and power-pop together.

“Mound songs are usually pretty concise. We try to pare the tunes down so there is very little fat on ‘em. It’s just something we’ve always done. Also, we’re getting old. Ask us to play a song over three and a half minutes and there’ll be cardiac issues,” explains guitarist/vocalist Mark Jordan.

The follow-up to 2004’s ‘Go Forth And Amplify’, the new record was a long and complicated process. “A few months after ‘Go Forth…’ came out, Mark disappeared to Canada for a year and we also had a bit of a transient drummer situation going on,” says bassist Hugh McCabe.

Indeed, since their formation as a project of guitarist/vocalist Anthony Mackey a decade ago, Large Mound have undergone numerous line-up changes. A quick headcount on their website shows that fourteen musicians have donned the Mound colours at some stage. With Jordan’s return from the Canada, a new drummer came in the shape of Eric Stover in early 2006.

McCabe admits that line-up changes have been frustrating at times, but has spurred another scheme, possibly inspired by Devo’s 2.0 concept.

“Once a year, all the Large Mounds would then come together, for a big gig/convention type thing. We might yet try and do this, particularly if the new album does well for us. It’s an idea whose time will come.”

Putting aspirations for the LM franchise to the side, the band started recording a year ago. All went fine, until modern technology gave them the two fingers. “We banged out the basic tracks for about 16 or 17 songs over a couple of days in a studio and then intended to quickly finish them off with overdubs, vocals etc in our rehearsal room. That’s when the problems started. As soon as computers are involved in the recording process you are entering a nightmarish world of incompatible hardware/software combinations and so on,” adds McCabe.