There are some bands which truly are one of a kind and The Hector Collectors surely fit the bill and have so since the day they made their first inimitable steps back in the year 2000. Almost tinkering with a revival after their demise/hiatus around 2004, the Glasgow hailing mischiefs are back in full swing with new album, Remember the Hector Collectors? ..You Won’t Believe What They Sound Like Now!!!!!, an encounter which teases, flirts, and keenly pleasures ears in the band’s unique way.
Something akin to a blend of Television Personalities, The Freshies, and Half Man Half Biscuit, the quartet of vocalist A.J.Smith, guitarist I.D.Smith, bassist Joseph Greatorex, and drummer Gavin Dunbar have honed in on their poppiest instincts yet within Remember the Hector Collectors? though that creative dissonance which sets them apart still drives their lo fi revelry.
The album opens up with Drowning in Dorito Chips, rhythms immediately calling on attention before the track’s infectious stroll works on feet and imagination. Flirtatious keys add to the potent lure still led by those manipulative beats and the call of group vocals alongside A.J.’s magnetic lead. With a sniff of Josef K to its untamed pop, the song quickly and deviously got under the skin, establishing itself as surely the next single teaser for the album.
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a 25 Minute Response Video to DESTROY your Argument follows with its own shade of the jangling goodness fuelling its predecessor; the song just as anthemic in its slightly more restrained but no less rascal of an incitement before Content Farm pokes at the appetite with its spikier pop punk antics with a mischievous wink at familiarity. There is a hint of bands like The Sums to the song and also within its successor, Bullies, another inherent indie pop soaked stroll which is pure pleasure courting nostalgia and modern DIY enterprise from within which a Top Buzzer whiff escapes. Featuring as a handful of tracks the featured keys of Dave Gillies, he one of a number of guests across the release including guitarist Cal Wiseman Murray, keyboardists Chris Elkin and Billy Samson, and backing vocalist Martin Smith, the song like so many needs little help to captivate ears and a never too far from the surface smile.
The brief folkish medieval devilment of White Knight to F5 needed mere seconds to hook feet and lust, a success immediately repeated by next up Just Lovely, another incomplex pop jangle stocked with inescapable hooks and lo-fi misdemeanours recalling essences of bands such as Swell Maps and Fatal Microbes.
Across the pop ‘n’ roll of The Ad Hominem and the pop fray of Overton Window, band and album just accentuate their rich enticements, the first of the pair especially persuasive while Cognitive Dissonance eclipses both with its punk coated misbehaviour again hinting at the seventies and the antics of bands like O‘Level and Teenage Filmstars.
Edgelords provides a satisfying sing-along moment next, one proving very hard to resist within its melodic web with Abandoned Website following up its incitement with its own individual indie rural tinted jangle so easy to get involved with.
The album is completed by the outstanding Leeson Windfarm, a Scars hued encounter with espionage lined rhythms and intrigue loaded guitar. Vocally and lyrically, the song reflects on local and social observations, a regular spark to the band’s smart, playful words and those wicked song titles backed by similarly impish sounds.
As suggested at the start, The Hector Collectors is like few others, if any to be truthful, and as they re-energise their presence with new adventure in their sound that is not going to change any time soon, Remember the Hector Collectors? ..You Won’t Believe What They Sound Like Now!!!!! and its thickly enjoyable fun proof of that.
Remember the Hector Collectors? ..You Won’t Believe What They Sound Like Now!!!!! is out now; available digitally and on Ltd Ed vinyl @ https://thehectorcollectors.bandcamp.com/album/remember-the-hector-collectors-you-wont-believe-what-they-sound-like-now
https://www.facebook.com/thehectorcollectors/
Pete RingMaster 06/11/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
creative maze with Television Personalities and The Goons, now you get the idea. Released in Wales at the tail of 2013 and in the UK this coming January 27th, it is impossible to cover the whole of the five hours offered so we will pick some of the best tracks on the release, or rather our definite favourites. From the brief vocally cast opening title track of Vol. 1, the CD offering a parade of songs looking at the male psyche in the pursuit of love, second song The Language of the Body featuring Little Arrow strums out its temptation with acoustic caresses aligned to a melodica seduction. The united array of vocals is excellent, raising a smile with their mischief whilst the lead vocal has a riveting tone like an inebriated Bryan Ferry. The song coaxes the imagination and emotions perfectly and is not equalled again, despite some thoroughly enjoyable engagements, until the almost baroque tones of Love Is a Two Racquet Sport croons contagiously in the ear. Both I’m Sorry I Removed Your Eyes featuring John Mouse and Annabelle spark the passions to greater hunger, the first an energetic dance of jazzy invention and the second a swoon of clumsy romance within a smouldering acoustic enticement. As with all the best songs on the album you cannot help joining in with the chorus, cries, or silliness vocally and emotionally. The quirkily anthemic It Wasn’t Me, It Was The Moon, the hypnotically persuasive The Game featuring Hail! The Planes, and So It Went Like This…. all contest best track honours not only on the first volume but whole album, the last of the trio especially incendiary to feet and an emerging devilish appetite.