Labels: Extreme Sports
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Well, apparently they’ve experienced several thousand lineup changes over the last year, and now currently only comprise of one person made up of various body parts of each entity who has ever been in the band. This multi limbed monstrosity sets itself up in the studio, plays every instrument, records it, and ends up with a 6 track EP that makes me happy to say: Hirameka Hi-Fi are rather good.
It opens up on “Miriam Vale”, which is a well crafted piece of post-hardcore indie rock tuneage, quirksome time changes, nice variety in guitar sound, relatively monotonal speaky sung vocals, and a lovely instrumental breakdown about half way through. Very atmospheric. Here’s the hookup: the Lapse / Paul Newman / Mogwai / Tristeza style. Though it’s never going to quite be as good as those simple comparisons would make it out to be, it has a pretty good go in trying. Track #2 is splendid, all meandering and moody, guitars twinkle you into a state of shuteye whilst your foot unwittingly taps on the floor as they up the tempo for a short moment before dropping everything down again. “Delights In Talk” rocks out in a distinctly “Chris Leo fronted band” way, spoken vocals, the part where the song chills out to 30 degrees below zero, and lots of repeated guitar parts combine to make the stand out track on here.
Funniest song title: “(left-eye burned my house down)”. Poor Andre Rison. Wasn’t it enough that the sorry fellow had to spend half his career playing for the Atlanta Falcons?
All in all: very good. I’m happy to applaud and pat Hirameka on the back for doing this stuff that they do when there is no scene for them to live in. Infinitely preferable to a lot of other bands in the UK, that’s for sure.