HC/HWCT split

I’ve been waiting for some time to get to this split record between UK malcontents Hey Colossus and Aussie instrumental destroyers Hotel Wrecking City Traders – but not as long as the two bands have been trying to bring it to fruition, with the bands staying in contact and shooting the shit about collaborations since 2006. They finally played together last year and the excuses became null and void – and here we are.

The A-side (which is redundant really because this is all A material) is taken up by 'Heaven Blows', Hey Colossus' ten minute atonal drone, spending the first third in cryogenic free fall, all manner of post-life matters passing before the eyes and between the ears, a meditative splitting of atoms, slowed down 1200%. The questions being asked doesn't matter - the pulsing ebb here renders them all obsolete. A real sonic palate cleanser from a band more renowned for tearing temporal rifts in time and space into much more warped parallel dimensions. The boys may have a new album already out - more on that soon - but it's imperative you dip into this.

Then double down on 'Droned & Disowned (Pt 2)', the Melbourne contingent smashing forth with a terse yet tightly calibrated twenty-minute leviathan. This is HWCT's bread and butter though, finding the grit and sinew in the elongated sonic crawl, finding the feral and fugue states in the funk, finding the clarity in the clouded haze. Forever restless, forever entwined in both darkness and light. The Matthews bros know when to let loose, when to distort, when to pare back, when to groove, when to cut. Telekinetic alchemy, the changeovers and dips into the rock abyss would be mind-boggling if it wasn't so expected from these guys. The funk cuts to the grind, and it's breathtaking - this is something I never tire of listening to.

You can get the split from either Wild Animals Records or Bro Fidelity Records – a must.

Hey Colossus Won't Disappear In Black & Gold

I really wanted to head along to the Lexington tomorrow night to catch the launch of sonic madmen Hey Colossus' new album, In Black And Gold. I am heading along to the Disappears show at The Lexington tonight instead (sorry guys - double booked!) which will (hopefully) be a killer show in itself - but if this album is anything to go by, that show will go all Scanners on people, painting the venue red with exploded heads. It isn't as all-out batshit crazy as their brilliant album of 2013 Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo, but there is a tempered aggression held here that underscores a more deliberated and calibrated cerebral attack. It starts off with 'Hold On' which is all contemplative, a mystical drift more akin to the Jason Pierce end of psychedelia - but don't worry, the darkness returns with the cantankerous yet plodding march of 'Sisters and Brothers', a syncopated stutter imbued with thunder that Pere Ubu have mined of late. 'Hey, Dead Eyes, Up!' strikes a balance between blues-addled excess and Monster Magnet-fried excess - the two excesses finely complementing each other - and all just over three minutes in fermentation. 'Wired_Brainless' is as meticulous in its lurking in the shadows creep as it is ludicrous; 'Black And Gold' takes a closer take to doom before dragging it out into the desert and burying it up to its neck; 'Lagos Atom' is a synapse surge of bio-engineered horror; 'Eat It' is Black Sabbath for the 21st century unhinged maniac. Closer 'Sinking, Feeling' owes as much to the Spaghetti Western gunslingers as it does to the molten earth axe-slingers. It is all a much more studied and serious release - but then again, this is Hey Colossus we are talking about here. Short, tethered, acutely focused - but you can't escape the gurning insanity that lies therein.

Colossal Cuckoos Live Large

I have spoken about bizarros Hey Colossus before - my introduction to them was when Descalator supported Pontiak at the Old Blue Last back in 2010. I bought their split release with Hey Colossus was something quite off the wall brutal. The London/Somerset collective have released a new album, Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo, and its suitably twisted. Their eighth longplayer - seriously - is easily the best thing Ive heard them procreate. There is a hedonistic, foaming at the mouth quality to unhinged tracks like 'Hot Grave' that nevertheless sound like one toe is still full submerged in the lakes of irony and sarcasm, even as they self-flagellate with a rhinoceros horn. They are transparent - they love their Melvin-esque dirge quirk dipped liberally in Yow madness and drowning in Part Chimp's acidic tears - but the sheer abandon and maniacal glee these tracks are delivered with supersedes any tips of the hat. And then 'Leather Lake' rears its shorn, bloodied skull, and your bowels will never forgive you. I have to admit I didn't know about this record until my bro-in-law slung it my way last week, and I'm eternally grateful. What can I say - he knows me, sardonic devilry and all.

Grab Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo here - its out now through MIE Records. Seriously great.