Hey Colossus - In Blood '2023

Tracks list

In Blood is the group’s 14th album and the follow-up to 2020’s
critically acclaimed Dances/Curses.

It was typical of a band so well-known for stellar live performances to release
their most successful album at a time when they were unable to back it up on the
road. As was the case for many, lockdown changed the band’s lives in
unexpected ways. Some felt a form of cabin fever at not being able to continue
to make music (diverting their energies elsewhere - founding Wrong Speed Records
for starters) whereas others relished the peace and quiet, perhaps questioning
whether they wanted to return to the life they had before. Gigs (so long the
lifeblood of the band) were booked, postponed, and cancelled. Things began to
unravel and perhaps for the first time since the band formed in 2003 it was hard
to see how it could continue.

A plan was hatched to attempt to re-energise and reassemble the band: they would
begin work on a new album. They would approach this as though a Somerset version
of The Desert Sessions – members old and new and guests would contribute
as and when time and restrictions allowed.

The same writing and recording approaches were deployed as previous albums
– explosions of group energy captured during intense studio sessions and
then later whittled down into more manageable forms. This isn’t unique by
any means but the group’s familiarity and trust in the process now
produces something approaching traditional songs, albeit created spontaneously,
without discussion and without committee and captured at the beautiful moment
before understanding gives way to familiarity. The ‘open door’
policy of the sessions rapidly solidified into an entirely new Hey Colossus
line-up, bringing with it fresh enthusiasm and enough initial material for a
double album.

Lyrically, British folk and ghost mythology provided the starting position for
the song themes ranging from mutated stories of grief and loss written in the
14th Century (Perle), spiritual reawakening by ancient apparitions (Avalon) to
the growth of nature after devastation (Can’t Feel Around Us, Over Cedar
Limb), a metaphor also for spirit and body renewal and rebirth after trauma.

The results sound free of any genre shackles and it suits Hey Colossus. They
have taken the expansive anything-goes approach that made Dances/Curses so
successful and fine-tuned and shaped it into an 8-song single album that never
treads water or fills time. The prominent vocals steer the listener through the
music, defining it as opposed to punctuating it (or being

buried by it). In Blood positions Hey Colossus somewhere new, outside of
perceived contemporaries and in a more rarefied place altogether, alongside
‘classic’ bands like The Cure, Killing Joke, Sonic Youth, Dead Can
Dance or even New Order (or The F-word of course – with Hey Colossus the
only band anywhere near Prestwich’s finest in terms of band member
turnaround and reinvention). The band changes but in doing so remains the same.
Hey Colossus only sound like Hey Colossus.

In Blood feels like a calling card for the band in their 20th anniversary year.
As odd and challenging as long-term fans would expect or hope for, but somehow
more accessible and to the point than ever before. It is the closest the group
have ever come to a pop record and their most concise, emotionally powerful
statement since 2016’s masterpiece The Guillotine. Most crucially, In
Blood feels positive, like a small ray of light in some very dark and very weird
times. Music can never entirely negate these feelings but, like the natural
world referenced in the lyrics and sleeve, it invisibly bonds people together,
lifting us up if we choose to let it.

Robert Davis – Guitar
Roo Farthing – Drums
Tim Farthing – Guitar
Chris Summerlin – Guitar
Paul Sykes – Vocals
Joe Thompson - Bass

Tracklist:
1.01 - Hey Colossus - My Name In Blood (3:46)
1.02 - Hey Colossus - I Could Almost Care (4:15)
1.03 - Hey Colossus - Perle (5:51)
1.04 - Hey Colossus - Can’t Feel Around Us (5:31)
1.05 - Hey Colossus - Curved In The Air (5:23)
1.06 - Hey Colossus - Avalon (3:31)
1.07 - Hey Colossus - TV Alone (3:56)
1.08 - Hey Colossus - Over Cedar Limb (7:37)

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