Following the stop-gap compilation release of ‘Dedicated To Uri Klangers (2003 - 2013)’ in December, Hey Colossus return with their first new album since ‘Radio Static High’ and ‘In Black and Gold’ (both 2015)… Actually, five months is hardly a stop-gap, is it? Just as two years between albums is no time when singles and EPs are also being slipped out systematically. How do they do it?
‘The Guillotine’ is pitched as being ‘darker and more brooding than their last two records’, as well as being ‘perhaps their most richly melodic to date’. But don’t expect any immediate, mellow, or overtly tuneful pop tunes here. Opener ‘Honest to God’ is a windy, trippy tremolo-fest that breaks into a mess of Melvins-style distortion, and from the outset, ‘The Guillotine’ has some serious heft – as we’ve come to expect from Hey Colossus. In short, it doesn’t disappoint and is plenty heavy. Against that expectation however, ‘Calenture Boy’ is possessed of a lilting, chiming tunefulness that’s almost shoegazey post-rock in flavour. It’s engaging in its atmospheric depth, the rolling bassline bringing a swaying elegance that’s more God Machine than anything else.
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It’s the album’s second track, ‘Back in the Room’ that brings it all: a brain-squeezing psychedelic pulsation, it’s heavy, gnarly, built around a single, simple and repetitive chord sequence hinged around a throbbing, dirty bass grind. It ploughs on for over seven glorious cranium-scouring minutes.
‘The Guillotine’ has a lot to offer: the warping, jerky ‘Englishman’ is a magnificent mindfuck in the contrast it provides, melodic and hooky in a post-punk sort of way and packing a killer punch by way of a low-slung chorus, while the title track is a strung-out sounding delirious dirge built around a pelvis-shuddering bassline over which chiming picked notes, bathed in heavy chorus drip and drift. The tension never yields to release, but far from making for an anti-climax, it makes for an uneasy finish that’s emblematic of the band’s evolution.
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