Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses '2020

Tracks list

Amplification moves air and gestures to the celestial. A splitter van parks in a
service station. The afterglow of the stage. The weight of a bass cab up a steep
flight of metal stairs. Hey Colossus are no strangers to the dualities of life
as a loud rock band. But more importantly, they know how to channel both facets
into records that transcend all limitations in a blinding volley of
incandescence.

Dances / Curses - their lucky thirteenth record - is the work of six musicians
at the peak of their considerable powers of intuition and inspiration.Constant
motion is also something Hey Colossus know a little about, now into their
eighteenth year as a band in a never-ending search for new trouble and new
epiphanies. When this iteration of the band - which came together around the
making of their last release, 2019’s ‘Four Bibles’,
geographically spread between Somerset, Watford, London, Nottingham and
Sheffield - first began work the chemistry apparently took care of itself, with
their meetings at weekend rehearsals seeing them undergo a process less like
jamming and more like a particularly intensive form of instant composition.
Whatever sparks were spontaneously flying in these initial sessions, they gave
rise to enough material to make Dances / Curses a double record, running the
gamut from the rhythmically-driven, infectiously melodic songcraft of
‘Donkey Jaw’ and ‘Medal’ via the slow-burning
atmospherics of ‘U Cowboy’ to the mightily motorik-driven 15 minute
travelogue that is ‘A Trembling Rose’, which takes in a plethora of
unified headspaces in richly cinematic style.

Longterm Hey Colossus fan Mark Lanegan makes an appearance amidst the languid
and sun-soaked denouement of ‘The Mirror’, the existential gravitas
of his tones entirely at home in these revelatory surroundings. Fittingly for a
band who operate entirely by their own co-ordinates, Dances / Curses is released
on bassist Joe Thompson’s own Wrong Speed Records (and Learning Curve
Records in the US), his latest such venture in a lifetime of steadfast belief in
the DIY maxim, “Its 100\% time for all bands to take control of their
shit” he notes. All the tools are there to do it yourself. Back your own
horse. Its practical. Its positive. Theres a chance things will never be the
same, if change doesnt happen now it never will.”

True to form for a band in full control, Dances / Curses is far from the kind of
sprawling psych opus that exists purely due to the band being too baked, biased
or blasé to edit it down. Indeed, this serendipitous record marks something
even these six musicians never necessarily intended - a work in the tradition of
the double album with an element of mystery, a record that somehow changes
itself every time it returns to the shelf. Somewhere on the great continuum
between Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You and Stevie Wonder’s
Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants, somewhere between the dances of
aspiration and the curses of reality, Hey Colossus have created their finest
alchemical achievement to date.

Tracklisting:
01. Hey Colossus - The Eyeball Dance (4:24)
02. Hey Colossus - Donkey Jaw (4:35)
03. Hey Colossus - Medal (3:05)
04. Hey Colossus - Dreamer Is Lying In State (3:27)
05. Hey Colossus - Nine Is Nine (3:07)
06. Hey Colossus - A Trembling Rose (16:12)
07. Hey Colossus - A Trembling Rose (Reprise) (3:37)
08. Hey Colossus - The Mirror (4:19)
09. Hey Colossus - Revelation Day (5:41)
10. Hey Colossus - Stylites In Reverse (3:36)
11. Hey Colossus - U Cowboy (4:41)
12. Hey Colossus - Dead Songs For Dead Sires (6:59)
13. Hey Colossus - Blood Red Madrigal (3:24)
14. Hey Colossus - Tied In A Firing Line (8:46)

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