Photo by Beth Eloise Fraser
Hailing from England’s capital, The Imaginary Hat creates a sound self-penned as 1920s Punk Rock. As much as your imagination might work with that tag it will only guess at the rich mix of flavours making up the band’s music and new EP Age of Anxiety. Alongside their fusion of rock, punk and 20’s inspired jazz you can find essences of rockabilly, swing, folk and more. It makes for a proposition and new release which is unpredictable, mischievous, and seriously appetising.
The London based outfit formed in 2014 and swiftly earned a potent, attention luring reputation for their music and live presence across the capital and beyond. This year has seen the band emerge with a new and expanded line-up and now second EP, Age of Anxiety, the successor to their well-received debut, Ladies And Gentlemen Kindly Remove Your Hats released this past January.
The spirited rhythms of drummer Phil Joyce kick EP opener Pretty Little Features into life, their increasingly tenacious antics luring ears, appetite, and the guitar jangle of Luke Fraser. Swiftly his vocals also jump in, the track bouncing round with its fifties rock ‘n’ roll scented jazz punk. With a touch of eighties band The Stargazers to it and also the jump blues hues of a Louis Jordan, the song leaps and swings, successfully insisting on the same from the listener. Punk riffs taunt throughout as the flames of Nick Smith’s Trombone unite with the sax of Oscar Ives-Owen; each adding to the virulent contagion of an outstanding start to the release.
A trombone sigh brings up the following Tick Tick Tick, its enticement soon joined by the boisterous stroll of Sam Dimond’s magnetic bass. Vocals again simply entice as they dance devilishly within the similarly insistent sounds around them, enterprise which becomes more bedlamic and frantic by the second but with reins which hauls the chaos back into a just as addictive imaginative canter. You can call the track whatever style you wish but at its heart it is punk rock and relishing its anarchy.
Right Side is next, uncaging a thick dark grumble around another instinctively catchy lure of rhythms. It is infectiousness and swing echoed in Fraser’s vocals as the track prowls, as good as stalks ears and imagination. Bordering blues funereal in gait, salacious seduction in tone, the track physically smoulders as it sears itself into the memory, it too becoming more hellacious in tone and texture by the handful of seconds.
The Imaginary Hat is back in full bounce with Monkey Glands straight after, the track like a swing jazz equivalent of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers at their devilish while Until One Of Us Dies closes up the release with its dark seduction. Both tracks just hit the spot, the first a collusion of punk ’n’ roll fuelled flavours akin to Eighteen Nightmares at the Lux meets The Strangler Figs under the tutelage of Cab Calloway with its successor unleashing flames of jazz conjured rock with increasing rigour across a landscape as mercurial as it is dramatic.
Though into their fourth year, 2018 might be the moment The Imaginary Hat get crowded by much broader and eager attention. Their two EP’s this year, especially Age of Anxiety, give evidence that it is more than deserved.
Age of Anxiety is out now, available @ https://theimaginaryhat.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.theimaginaryhat.com/ https://www.facebook.com/theimaginaryhat/ https://twitter.com/theimaginaryhat
Pete RingMaster 17/07/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Fusing garage punk and punk rock with fifties rock ‘n’ roll, the Dirty Jane sound prowls ears and psyche like a fusion of The Cramps, The Phantom, Dick Venom and The Terrortones, and Eighteen Nightmares At the Lux; a creative breed of temptation which instantly has ears and appetite inflamed as the single sonically and vocally shatters the silence. Within another breath, rhythms are prowling the senses with a lively almost predacious gait casting catchy menace for Brown to vocally embrace. With insatiable hooks equally grabbing ears all along his guitar’s swarthy grooves, a delicious grumble to Beadsmore’s bass alongside, and the whole of the band courting thick involvement with their vocal roars, the song demands lusty participation, Morris’ tenaciously swinging beats extra incentive.
Recently unveiled single and EP title track, Sink Or Swim is the first lure of the release and instantly it tantalises ears and imagination with its flirtatious and slightly agitated web of melodic enterprise. There is funkiness to guitar and bass as they align with skittish beats around the swiftly impressing vocals. The seriously engaging start is soon a heftier stroll of boisterous endeavour and energy, beats a beefy incitement within the feisty blaze of guitar and bass stringed revelry. Though it relaxes at times throughout, that first expulsion of creative zeal fires up the rest of a song thereon in; a contagion which simply gets under the skin with the great expressive character of the vocals leading the way.
it’s tempting to the garage rock stomp as the song hits the ground with a lively gait. As its predecessor the virulently catchy encounter swiftly ignites an even greater appetite and satisfaction whilst being relentlessly fascinating though its expectations defeating adventure, a quality which is even more exploited by It Rises!
toxicity soon after, adding predacious swings as vocalist Paul Gautrey begins unveiling the dark toned narrative. The heavy throated lure of Ben Auston’s bass only adds to the demonically erotic seduction embracing ears and imagination, almost egging on the darker tempting of the song as it immerses the psyche. Virulently contagious and greedily insatiable, Love Sick is raw sonic alchemy with grooves and hooks as spicy and venomous as the instinctively enslaving rhythms and emotively ravenous vocals.
strumming before breaking into a hungry stroll of expressive and sinisterly grinning vocals alongside slide guitar teasing and rhythmic prowling. It is an immediate recruitment with a sonic hook which seduces the passions instantly. Around that barbed lure the bass of Elt romps and crawls over the ear with a rapacious greed, its menace bringing dark corners to bear upon the country rock lined stomp to find a dark union with the equally nightmare seeded lyrical narrative wonderfully expelled by the vocals of Teece.