The Heavy

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Continue reading: A Week In Music Featuring: Jack White, DJ Shadow, Rita Ora, Aerosmith, Alt-J, Willy Moon And Much More!

With their third full-length release, Bath-based neo soul rockers The Heavy have rebottled their advert-friendly sound for another take. This time round, the four-piece took off to the spiritual home of their distinctly American South dingy rock (specifically Columbus, Georgia) in order to record The Glorious Dead and, whilst the blueprint goes largely unchanged, the album does contain one or two moments that prick your ears up.

Complete with a gospel choir now, the band have invested the money they must have made from being the spokes-group for Strongbow, Kia, a host of movies, TV programmes and video game advertisements well in adding a dash of spice to the mix. With 'How You Like Me Now' and the like still in people's consciousness, it was interesting to see how the band could maybe shake off these shackles and perhaps set sail in another direction. In actual fact, the band have done nothing like that and have stuck to the ethos that Will Smith (when he was the Fresh Prince) so wisely said on 'Summertime'; "if it ain't broke then don't try and fix it."

'Can't Play Dead' makes good use of the added vocal power to back up the already powerful voice of Kelvin Swaby by the time the chorus comes round, but is still very-much what you would expect to hear from The Heavy. When 'Curse Me Good' comes round, we do notice a tonal shift, with the track sounding more Cloud 9-era George Harrison or even Texas than it does the same people who recorded The House That Dirt Built. Still, the shift even further into the pop hemisphere is not exactly one that takes you aback and leaves you on the edge of your seat begging for more. As antithetical as it may sound, after hearing the band tread into these unchartered waters, you are almost pining for them to return to their marquee sound; something that 'What Makes A Good Man?' does with ease. This song in particular is everything you would expect the band to produce and will no doubt be gracing the airwaves in-between the football in the near future.

Continue reading: The Heavy - The Glorious Dead Album Review

Review of The Heavy's album The House That Dirt Built released through Ninja Tunes.

Continue reading: The Heavy, The House That Dirt Built Album Review

Review of The Heavy's single Sixteen.

Continue reading: The Heavy, Sixteen Single Review

The Heavy
Great Vengeance and Furious Fire
Ninja Tune
Album Review

Continue reading: The Heavy, Great Vengeance and Furious Fire Album Review

The Heavy
Great Vengeance and Furious Fire
Album Review

Bath’s The Heavy have emerged. After some considerable hype, with their rather ostentatiously-titled debut LP Great Vengeance and Furious Fire.

While the title may lead one to expect the aural equivalent of being pumped full of lead by Samuel L. Jackson and that bloke from Saturday Night Fever, the album is actually an infectiously sleazy collection of rock ‘n’ soul stompers that hit much more than they miss.

‘You Didn’t Know’ is a highlight; a gutsy blues holler underpinned by a rough and raw guitar line, while ‘Colleen’ channels the spirit of Prince with a brilliantly camp falsetto vocal.

Inevitably, with such a haphazard approach, there are some decidedly ropey moments, particularly the self-consciously ‘wacky’ rap on ‘Girl’ which boasts the line ‘it must be the way you wear your jeans’, which should lead you to wonder exactly how many ways one can wear a pair of jeans.

At just ten tracks long, Great Vengeance is a short blast of heady fun that contains some genuinely impressive moments; surely it wouldn’t be too much to suggest that The Heavy have got a truly great album in them?

Ben Davis

3/5

The Heavy
That Kind Of Man/Coleen
Single Review

Continue reading: The Heavy, That Kind Of Man/Coleen Single Review