HEY COLOSSUS – DANCES/CURSES

Amplification moves air and gestures to the celestial. A splitter van parks in a service station. The afterglow of the stage. The weight of a bass cab up a steep flight of metal stairs. Hey Colossus are no strangers to the dualities of life as a loud rock band. But more importantly, they know how to channel both facets into records that transcend all limitations in a blinding volley of incandescence. Dances/Curses – their lucky thirteenth record – is the work of six musicians at the peak of their considerable powers of intuition and inspiration. Constant motion is also something Hey Colossus know a little about, now into their eighteenth year as a band in a never-ending search for new trouble and new epiphanies. When this iteration of the band – which came together around the making of their last release, 2019’s ‘Four Bibles’, geographically spread between Somerset, Watford, London, Nottingham and Sheffield – first began work the chemistry apparently took care of itself, with their meetings at weekend rehearsals seeing them undergo a process less like jamming and more like a particularly intensive form of instant composition. Whatever sparks were spontaneously flying in these initial sessions, they gave rise to enough material to make Dances/Curses a double record, running the gamut from the rhythmically-driven, infectiously melodic songcraft of ‘Donkey Jaw’ and ‘Medal’ via the slow-burning atmospherics of ‘U Cowboy’ to the mightily motorik-driven 15 minute travelogue that is ‘A Trembling Rose’, which takes in a plethora of unified headspaces in richly cinematic style. Longterm Hey Colossus fan Mark Lanegan makes an appearance amidst the languid and sun-soaked denouement of ‘The Mirror’, the existential gravitas of his tones entirely at home in these revelatory surroundings. Genre: Goth Rock, Grunge, Alternative, Post Punk Track 8, The Mirror is a collaboration with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees. RIYL – Birthday Party, Peru Ubu, Screaming Trees, Dischord Records, Touch N Go