Album Review: Hatcham Social – Cutting Up The Present Leaks Out The Future
Cutting Up The Present Leaks Out The Future
Released February 17th 2014
How do you tell a band that this is their best album yet without it sounding like you didn’t enjoy the last few? It’s kind of difficult but yet the truth must be told and Cutting Up The Present Leaks Out The Future is a much needed contribution to my music collection and is up there with one of the best albums I’ve heard in ages. It’s a shoegazy, poppy, scuzzy, vintage atmospheric walk though the minds of an intriguing bunch of young men.
Whilst this kind of sound might be en vogue right now, what with the likes of Toy et al doing the rounds, Hatcham Social have always had one foot, and most of a leg, firmly in the realm of shoegaze and the scuzzier psychedelic side of Indie. It doesn’t feel forced or conceited and they are most certainly not jumping on anyone’s band wagon. Cutting Up The Present Leaks Out The Future feels like a natural progression for Hatcham Social and you can hear the influence of label owner Tim Burgess has had, or should I say Tim and his co-album writer Kurt Wagner. Having said that it could have been Hatcham that had a hand in influencing Tim… but anyway, I digress. There are influences far and wide and each track dips into something a little different each time.
Having your opening track be just shy of 8 minutes long is a bold statement and most bands wouldn’t be brave enough to do it but Ketemine Queen has such a pull that you become engrossed in the haunting atmosphere that just envelops you. It’s all a bit Twin Peaks and actually is a really different way to open up an album and I salute them for it. Of course it needs something a little more punchy straight after and we sure are given that with the fantastic dirty cutting electric guitars on All That I See Is A Gun.
Singer Toby Kid has a very gentle vocal which he uses to woo your ears and when it’s coupled with an other worldly musical soundtrack and a good whack of reverb you can not help but to feel a bit of a swoon come on. Check out To The Moon (Is This The Way Man Will Survive) for a perfect example of this. Then go ahead and listen on to Spirit of 45 which has the same enchanting vocals with perfectly matched and exceptionally high harmonies. I dare you not to have this one hammered into your subconscious for a good few hours after listening to it. It is almost impossible. Even when I’ve not listened to it I’m singing (ruining) it.
It’s after those two tracks that Hatcham Social have decided to hit you in the face with More Power To Live. A track that has as much swagger as it does jaunty guitars. It is quite shoegaze but you can’t sing about power and add in hard hitting electric guitars when looking sullenly at your feet. It is by far the most upbeat track on the album and has a real soul flavour to it in parts.
I never write about songs in their order on the album but the way this has been put together I feel like I need to give it context and so I continue with the fourth track in a row: Lion With A Lazar Gun is easily one of my favourite songs of the past 12 months or so and the fact that it sweeps in all shimmery just after More Power To Live makes it all the sweeter.
All in all Cutting Up The Present Leaks Out The Future is a glorious album. There are no rough edges with a smooth production but it does come when you hear it live and you get a little extra hit on some of the tracks. I don’t give things out of stars but if I did I’d give it all the stars I had at my disposal.
poppedmusic 