Hey Colossus : Heaven Was Wild
Hey Colossus have an admirable work ethic. Their geographically disparate positioning, with six members scattered across various far-flung corners of England such as Somerset and Nottingham, inherently makes the logistics of being in a band together challenging. Bassist Joe Thompson has documented this dynamic entertainingly in his excellent memoir of his successful balancing of touring the UK and Europe with life as an early-morning rural postman, Sleevenotes. The realities of this situation, though, must have made the recording of Heaven Was Wild, the psychedelic noise rockers’ 15th album, all the more difficult to coordinate, because they all played the songs live together, in the studio, with nobody recording their parts separately from afar before sending it to the other members. As the band themselves have said in a statement preceding the album’s release, the aim for the sessions was to spend “a week in a studio together playing live, no click-track, amps up full,” in order to sound “looser and rawer than [they] have been in years.”
The album opens with lead single “Cannibal Forecast,” a strong mid-tempo track that has a driving rhythm and three treble-heavy guitar lines by Robert Davis, Tim Farthing, and Chris Summerlin that soar over the top of it. Paul Sykes’ lead vocals on “Roses,” which follows it, retain the slightly ghostly, other-worldly qualities they had on previous album In Blood, and they mesh well with the flange effects on the guitars, as well as Roo Farthing’s pounding drums. The triple-guitar attack works particularly effectively on “Clock,” and the additional vocals from Claire Thompson of Leeds post-punk greats Nape Neck cause the song to become a hard, fast, abrasive duet. “Death and Deliverance” continues at this pace, Davis et al.’s guitars sounding simultaneously melodic and squalling. The slower, more contemplative “Runaway Heart” and “Party of Fleas” are wistful and moody in tone, employing a tempo that feels slightly plodding relative to the rest of Heaven Was Wild, and are the rare spots that don’t quite match up to the otherwise consistent highs of the album.
“People You Long to Forget” is a mid-tempo song dominated by melodic guitars and Sykes’ crooned vocals. Interestingly, the intro is a rough, lo-fi recording of the song’s guitar line and drumbeat being played in the style of Hey Colossus’s early, sludgier albums from the late 2000s like Project: Death and Happy Birthday. Speaking as a fan of the band’s early material, it’s great to hear them return to this sound. The vocals become more anthemic and insistent as the song builds to its climax, and some spacey guitars bring it to its conclusion. At five minutes and nine seconds, the song is perhaps as close as Heaven Was Wild (whose ten songs are done and dusted in 38 minutes) gets to epic territory. On such a bracing and compact album, it’s nice to have a comparatively looser song on there as a bit of counterbalance.
This is especially true when it’s followed up by the aggressive “Consequences,” on which the low, foreboding-sounding vocals Sykes intones in the verses give way to outright shouting in the choruses and the band let rip by playing at full blast, as was their stated intent for this album. Heaven Was Wild concludes with the one-two punch of “You’ll Rot” and “The Spiders Line.” “You’ll Rot” is a hard, speedy song with low, down-tuned guitars that sounds like it’ll rip live. “The Spiders Line” rounds things off with lots of reverb on the guitars and echo on the vocals, again tonally recalling the dark mood that underpinned much of In Blood. “You’ll Rot” would likely have made for a sharper and more powerful conclusion, but “The Spiders Line”’s closing guitar chords nonetheless provide the listener with a welcome moment to step back and reflect on the powerful, pleasurable set of songs they have just heard.
This album is another strong piece of work from Hey Colossus that, though not quite as effective as In Blood was at capturing a unifying and consistent mood, is an even tighter and more structured work of musicianship than that record. Which could be the result of its recording conditions. It even boasts the odd moment that will satiate fans longing for a return to the band’s earlier, heavier sound. Most importantly, the band have accomplished what they set out to do with the album in terms of sounding “live…looser…rawer” than they have done for their last several albums. Heaven Was Wild is the sound of six friends having a good time playing together and being in a band, which is always a good thing.
Label: Wrong Speed
Year: 2026
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