A Band On Hope – A Band On Hope
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| A Band On Hope - A Band On Hope |
Release Date: Out Now
The words Westcountry and Hip-Hop
don’t always sit together comfortably without imagining some sort of pimped up
Wurzels but shame on you for your lazy musical reference points. Frontman for
near legendary combo The Scribes, Ill Literate, and producer Kristian Sharpe
have created a side project under the name A Band On Hope and then gone on to
spawn an absolute beast of an album. From the word go, ‘Che Lives’ is an attack
on modern day apathy and ‘Dead Angels’ is a slick, groove heavy piece of
Jurassic 5-esque Hip Hop that pervades like the thickest, sweetest smoke. ‘Furgh
Que’ shows the duo humour off with bleeps liberally scattered around over the
stuttering acoustic and rippling lyrics. Gideon Conn is the closest comparison
I can make to tunes like ‘God Knows’ and ‘Low Budget High Life’ as the duo mix
humour, imaginative melodies and rapid fire vocals that swing between mockery
and insight like a monkey easing through the high branches of a jungle canopy.
There’s a wonderfully woozy
quality to ‘Mindfields’ that was born in the music of the Beatles and grew up
via the likes Jim Noir and Badly Drawn Boy in all their lo-fi beauty. I love a
comedy title so ‘Phantom of Hipopera’ is right up my street and musically it
tickles my fancy too with a gorgeously squelchy synth sound and the smooth
lyrical flow present yet again. ‘Russian Doll’ has a real West Coast feel (US
West Coast, not Weston Super Mare) while ‘So Far’ is one of the more spaced out
tracks albeit with a menacing, slightly threatening edge. That darkness
continues in to ‘Upsides Down’ as the tempo is taken down a notch and the duo
piss all over the likes of Professor Green who would do well to listen to this
album and take some notes.
On ‘Trapped Inside Escape’ the
pair move in to a space more usually occupied by late 90s boy bands with its
jerky melody and vocals style before ‘Standstill’ shuffles in to view with its
Stone Roses vibe and day-job bashing lyrics. The album closes out with ‘Spaced
Out Break Out’ which has a jazzy, almost Latin vibe and is yet more proof that
these guys know how to work a groove. I hope this becomes more than a
side-project as there is clearly a wealth of creativity which can be exploited
here and I can only imagine that their live shows would an awful lot of fun. A
hugely impressive album, then, and one that ought to be gaining a lot of
attention if it isn’t already.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/ABandonHopeMusic/
Live Dates (The Scribes):
1st October – The Energy Rooms, Torpoint
14th October – The Apple & Parrot, Torquay
9th December – The Social, Southampton w/Talib
Kweli
16th December – The Hub, Plymouth w/Land of The
Giants