Mercoledì 3 Dic 2008, 16:00

hell is for heroes
the neon handshake
five kids go

Having this week decided to cut down on journal entries from daily entries to less frequent journals, I am so far keeping the recent Wednesday fixture of "Midweek Crisis", though it's making its first appearance in the actual title this week. When I pick a "Midweek Crisis" track it will fall into one of three categories, either: (1) it's a cover, (2) it's humourous, or (3) it's a song I like from a genre or subgenre that stands out from the vast majority of my listening. …In this case I'd put this one in category 3.

Hell is for Heroes are a British band tagged on last.fm as "post-hardcore, rock, emo, alternative, alternative rock ", so you can see why they don't fit in with the majority of my listening. The reality of it is that if I came across the band for the first time today, I probably wouldn't like them at all. As it is though, I've had The Neon Handshake in my collection since 2002. At the time I bought it, I even considered it the heaviest record in that rather small collection.

By all means, I encourage people to go and check this out (full streaming on last) if they're open-minded. Retrospectively, I think the release has a few elements in common with the old NWOBHM, there's an energy to it and the sound certainly has some rough angsty edges to it. It wouldn't surprise me though to hear feedback from people saying that you probably need to get into them as a teenager to really enjoy it. It's yours to take it or leave it. I'm not forcing anyone to listen to it. If you're on the fence though, I can say the vocals are mostly 'clean' singing (not necessarily clean lyrics though, if you know what I mean), though they're a little droney, not exactly the operatic singing you'll see in most of my library. Very unusually for anything in my library, a total abesnce of guitar solos - I don't think there's a single one in either of the two albums I own by these guys - and the songs are mostly constructed from power chords with plenty of detuned drop D tracks. Oh and there are quite a lot of effects, like samples and vocal echoes and such-like.

Alternatively, you could check out their second album transmit disrupt, which I still think should be spelt Transmit Disrupt_ with an underscore at the end. It's slightly more laid back and mature sounding, perhaps even better songwriting, but the energy had almost completely disappeared, and it was veering closer to a Britpop/Indie sound. Thing is with that though is you've goto hunt it down somewhere other than last.fm, try youtube for the singles like one of us, models for the programme and kamichi. Of which Models for the Programme is probably my favourite. Since I'm such a nice guy: (youtube)

Feedback and discussion welcomed as usual, but remember I didn't guarantee you'd like it - that's why it's on Wednesday.