Arrow Fat Left Icon Arrow Fat Right Icon Arrow Right Icon Cart Icon Close Circle Icon Expand Arrows Icon Facebook Icon Instagram Icon Twitter Icon Hamburger Icon Information Icon Down Arrow Icon Mail Icon Mini Cart Icon Person Icon Ruler Icon Search Icon Shirt Icon Triangle Icon Bag Icon Play Video

Recently Added CD

  • Hey Colossus 'Four Bibles'

    Alter

    Hey Colossus 'Four Bibles'

    £9.99

    Coming out of London and the South West of England, Hey Colossus are one of Europe's great live bands. Since 2003 the 6-piece has been driving around the continent with their 'pirate ship' backline of broken amps and triple-guitar drang, elevating audiences in every type of venue imaginable; a doctor's waiting room in Salford, an industrial unit in Liege and a vast field next to a river in Portugal. Wherever they may roam.
     
    Four Bibles is their twelfth studio album and the first to be released by London label ALTER, whose sole proprietor (the electronic producer Helm) encountered the group at their first gig in 2003. Recorded by Ben Turner at Space Wolf Studios in Somerset, it's their most direct album yet and follows a well-documented trajectory of evolution that began (in the truest sense) with 2011's RRR for Riot Season and continued across three albums for Rocket Recordings.

    Lead vocalist Paul Sykes sounds more in focus than before, dialling down the effects and using reverb / delay to carry his lyrics rather than smother. The band has also fine-tuned to leave some room for extra depth. Piano, electronics and violin (by Daniel O'Sullivan of This is not This Heat / Grumbling Fur) all find a way in amongst a familiar mesh of interlacing guitars, wrapped round a taut rhythm section. Like every other Hey Colossus record before, the line-up has altered and the sounds reflect this. 
     
    From the weight of 'Memory Gore', to the subtlety and swag of 'It's a Low', via the sonic extremes of 'Palm Hex/Arndale Chins' this is exactly as the band are live; raging & rail-roading but somehow in control. Grooves for those who want to dance or for those who want to hug a wall and nod...bleak dystopian imagery submerged in relentless rhythms and low-end rattle. The songs breath life and soul - Hey Colossus have never sounded fresher or more on point.
     
    There is a book release to coincide with the album written by bass player (and founding member) Joe Thompson. It's part of a new series called 'Sleevenotes' by Pomona Publishing and the first four are out this year. Joe's book sits alongside other contributions by Bob Stanley (St Etienne), Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees/Solo), David Gedge (The Wedding Present) and contains a diary of the years leading up to the release of this record.

    Touring with bands Sumac and Grey Hairs through Europe, recording the album, line-up changes, the band's history and the big question is answered: Why? 

    Tracklisting:
    1. Bees Around The Lime Tree
    2. Memory Gore
    3. Confession Bay
    4. It's A Low
    5. (Decompression)
    6. Carcass
    7. The Golden Bough
    8. Palm Hex / Arndale Chins
    9. Babes Of The Plague
    10. Four Bibles

    Release Date: 17/05/2019
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus 'The Guillotine' - Cargo Records UK

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'The Guillotine'

    £12.99

    v

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'The Guillotine'

    £12.99

    Hey Colossus have undergone a spectacular metamorphosis in the last three years - the 2015 Rocket Recordings double-drop of In Black And Gold'and Radio Static High'displayed not only a band with a work rate to put most all their contemporaries to shame, but one arriving at an atmospheric and rewarding sound with as much flair for the beguiling as the barbaric.

    Changes may have been afoot in the Hey Colossus camp, yet their latest transmission The Guillotine'marks another peak for an innovative force in the realm of heavy amplification. Darker and more brooding than their recent work, it's also perhaps their most richly melodic to date - the interplay of their three guitar lineup has never sounded more fluent than on these eight songs, nor their songcraft more well-defined.

    This is a record whose alchemical charge arrives from a reinvention of loud rock shapes into forms both feral and fresh - whilst Hey Colossus can still bludgeon with overamped vigour, as on the hypnotic and devastating krautrock-Jesus-Lizard hybrid of Back In The Room'they can also deliver the dusky and haunting waltz-time serenade of Calenture Boy'with uncompromising fortitude, with the new-found confidence and allure of Paul Sykes'vocals at the forefront.

    These menacing and immersive songs chronicle a band exploring a unique sound and invigorating approach in a decade in which cliches and genre pieces in the realm of the psychedelic have frequently surrounded - here the six-piece find themselves transcending the limitations of the underground scene from whence they came, whilst exposing the paucity of inspiration in much of the guitar-rock mainstream.

    Hey Colossus are at their sharpest, and none will survive The Guillotine'.

    Tracklisting:
    Side A:
    1. Honest To God
    2. Back In The Room
    3. Calenture Boy
    4. Experts Toll

    Side B:
    1. Potions
    2. Englishman
    3. In A Collision
    4. The Guillotine
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus 'Radio Static High' - Cargo Records UK

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'Radio Static High'

    £12.99

    v

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'Radio Static High'

    £12.99

    Available on Blood Red Vinyl and CD.

    Initially lurching from the UK noise underground in 2003 like a bedraggled audial creature rendered from toxic waste in a VHS horror movie, the musical growth rate of Hey Colossus has been quite a spectacle to observe. Yet from the nightmarish murk of early driller-killer works such as 2004's debut Hates You'and 2008's Happy Birthday'to more recent nuggets of perversity like 2013's Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo', this beast has mutated and evolved into something uncommonly alluring.

    The six-piece London-via-Somerset troupe began 2015 with February's release of In Black And Gold'- in which the brawny repetition-driven raunch they built their sound on was furnished and burnished by dub-derived spatial awareness and cinematic drama, making it both a bold reinvention and an uncommonly compulsive avant-rock document. Yet not content with this, the band immediately set about following it up with their second album of the year, and one that further ups the ante on their savagely graceful assault.

    Radio Static High'is the sound of a confident outfit honing their attack to become a veritable force of nature. With the band citing - tongue presumably firmly lodged in cheek - inspirations as diverse as Jane's Addiction, Fleetwood Mac (Tango In The Night era) and Cypress Hill, songs were constructed at a fierce rate of knots, yet with a focus and intensity partly instilled by band members living hundreds of miles apart, and partly by the relentless passage of time.

    'We have noticed a small wave of incredible goodwill towards us. We want to give as we receive.' notes guitarist Jonathan Richards, whose chiming lead guitar plays a notable role in the album's Paris,Texas-esque midday ambience..'Maybe the knowledge of our 12 years together makes us aware of our mortality. Time is limited. A band's purpose is to create' Songs took shape from demos, exchanged riffs and drunken text messages alike -one such from guitarist Bob Davis to Richards demanding an homage to Neil Young's Cortez The Killer'resulted in a demo to that effect a mere 20 minutes later. which eventually became album centrepiece Memories Of Wonder'.

    Elsewhere, Hop The Railings'takes the powerfully propulsive groove of Can and cross-pollinates it with Beefheartian interweaving triple-guitar skronk to make a heat-haze-dwelling juggernaut of intimidating proportions, whilst the closing double-drop of Hesitation Time'and 'Honey'hits like Joy Division repurposed for the soundtrack to True Detective. 'After 12 years functioning in a Noiserock/Doom/Kraut/whatever scene of sorts and being aware of unwanted repetition, we feel it is more subversive for us to compose songs with rigid song structures than it is to absentmindedly clang off another riff-athon.'

    Richards adds:
    Indeed, with all the bulldozing primal drive of heavy AmRep-style rock and none of the cliches, and a sound infused with leftfield sleight-of-hand yet hitting home like hammer to anvil, Hey Colossus prove themselves as potent as they are prolific. What's more, 'Radio Static High', in all its sunkissed widescreen glory, is set to leave most all their contemporaries eating their dust.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Radio Static High
    2. March of the Headaches
    3. Hop the Railings
    4. Numbed Out
    5. Memories of Wonder
    6. Snapping Undone
    7. Another Head
    8. The Mourning Gong
    9. Hesitation Time
    10. Honey
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus ?'Project: Death' - Cargo Records UK

    Jonson Family Records

    Hey Colossus 'Project: Death'

    £9.99

    v

    Jonson Family Records

    Hey Colossus 'Project: Death'

    £9.99

    HC’s third album. New line up. More crushing. Cobwebs blown. Dual vocal death attack. Last couple of years gigs have been played with Boris, Oneida, Comets On Fire, The Drips, Trencher.

    Now with added ooze, taking inspiration from the bands they’ve played and shared records with, the new look HC is as happy and joyous as ever. Part psychedelic metal, part mantra like hardcore. Recorded by Mr T Cedar of Part Chimp. Art by Speeding Train.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Do They Ever Return?
    2. I Am The Chiswick Strangler
    3. 45 Pounds
    4. Frozed
    5. Rope Assassin
    6. The Book Of Disquiet
    7. On The Pleasure Of Hating
    8. Grow Still At Last
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus 'Ž'Hey Colossus II' - Cargo Records UK

    Jonson Family Records

    Hey Colossus ââ'š¬oe½'Hey Colossus II'

    Sold out

    Sold out
    Sold out
    1. Red Giant
    2. Horsehead
    3. Take It
    4. Vengeance
    5. Raise The Flag (This Planet's Ours)
    6. Europa
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus 'Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo' - Cargo Records UK

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo'

    Sold out

    Sold out
    v

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo'

    £11.99

    Sold out
    Side A:
    1. Hot Grave
    2. Oktave Dokkter
    3. How To Tell Time With Jesus

    Side B:
    4. Leather Lake
    5. English Flesh
    6. Pit And Hope
    Visit product page
  • Hey Colossus 'In Black And Gold' - Cargo Records UK

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'In Black And Gold'

    £12.99

    v

    Rocket Recordings

    Hey Colossus 'In Black And Gold'

    £12.99

    Emerging in a haze of demented riff science and booze-addled abandon, Hey Colossus have carved out a notable niche for themselves in the British underground's murkier quarters. They've dished out a formidable array of wax over the last decade, specialising in a primordial barrage of abject noise from overheated ampstacks.

    Yet for all the grit and gnarl of their output thus far, it's seemingly only been a warm-up for their latest opus, which sees their monstrous assault finely honed into an album as beguiling as it is bulldozing. In Black And Gold', their eighth album proper and first for Rocket Recordings, ushers in a new incarnation of Hey Colossus.

    Marrying malevolent attack to expansive celestial splendour, In Black And Gold'marks a point whereby Hey Colossus map out a sonic trajectory that expands on their trademark ornery overload. The songs herein may be leaner and more artful than the fearsome sound by which they made their name on albums like 2008's Project: Death'and the monstrous 2013 opus Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo', but they remain possessed of the wrath both Stoogian and Stygian that fuels their noiserock transgression.

    Yet meanwhile, and with 2015 looming large, an evolutionary process has led to their maximalist tendencies being replaced by a sharp focus on space and restraint, not to mention a refreshing stylistic diversity, resulting in a strange aural alchemy. Here, they sound as comfortable tackling electronically-fried dub mantras like Lagos Atom'as they do the Cluster-esque lullaby of the opening Hold On'. Yet there's no shortage of primal rock action to be had on In Black And Gold'; on Sisters And Brothers'they summon up a swaggering, demented groove that sashays like a zombified Gun Club, whilst on the dramatic spaghetti-psych of the title-track a revelatory cinematic sprawl of sound sees The Bad Seeds and The 13th Floor Elevators engaged in a psychic duel in the noonday sun.

    The vital and Spinal Tap-approved fine line between clever and stupid'has been a location that this London-based tinnitus machine has made fine work of dwelling on for the duration of their life thus far. Yet with In Black And Gold', in a laudable leap of faith, they've stepped beyond, and the result is both vicious and visionary. These unpretentious underworld overlords have emerged from the shadows to create an avant-garage pièce de résistance, and moreover it turns out that the sunlight suits them better than they ever realised.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Hold On
    2. Sisters And Brothers
    3. Hey, Dead Eyes, Up!
    4. Wired_Brainless
    5. Black And Gold
    6. Lagos Atom
    7. Eat It
    8. Sinking, Feeling

    Visit product page