Sounds on the Ground #3: It Hugs Back
By: Dan Monsell
What's the deal? Kent 4-piece It Hugs Back make some of the most swooning, revved-up melodic indie-rock we've heard for a while. Firmly in the woolly jumper tradition (whatever the hell that means) it's full of hushed vocals, dreamlike sound-scapes and blasts of punk-filled pop; the sound of fuzzy-headed summer days spent far too long in the sun.
If (if...) we were giving you some kind of aural benchmark, we'd say comparisons are easily made with early 90s American musical characters like The Lemonheads and Yo La Tengo. It's the way they create utterly lush sweeping melodies and also bring a little bit of My Bloody Valentine to mind - but in a much quieter and less abrasive fashion. It's also clear that these are young men clearly not afraid to wear hearts on sleeves. Best place for 'em.
It's fair to say there's been a lot of love for the band in recent times, with a lot of radio play and sessions with the likes of Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe and Rob Da Bank. Last year the band even took a step-up from releasing hand-crafted 7-inches as they received a tap on their collective shoulder by the ever-wonderful 4AD records, still yet to release a bad record in 30 years. Good news for all, as the band now stands a very good chance of reaching the wider audience that they so well deserve. High fives!
What can I listen to? Single (7-inch, CD, digital) 'Work Day' came out last year, and you can get it here, a new single 'Now and Again' is out March 2nd, and come April 6th the band release their debut full length Inside Your Guitar. If you shoot over to their myspace you can dance around your office / bedroom / sex dungeon to four little beauties of songs...
When Can I see them? The band are doing a nice little winter tour that looks all kinds of fun. BUT if you're around on March 12th we'd probably suggest you try and make it along to a little bit of that one happening at the Lexington at the bottom of this list...
3rd February - The Enterprise, London (supporting The Veils)
4th February - The Deaf Institute, Manchester (Drowned in Sound club night)
7th February - The Barfly Dragon Bar, Birmingham
11th February - City Screen Basement, York
21st February - The Portland Arms, Cambridge
24th February - The Albert, Brighton
27th February - Inside Out, Darlington
28th February - The Welly, Hull (NME club night)
12th March - The Lexington, London (Rockfeedback night)
We all know music peaked in 1994, so give me a sound-bite about how they could we compare them to some kind of Britpop band - Despite the fact that the band could well be from said period, we'll posit them as a more swoony Hefner, posting on web forums rather than writing in journals, buying sweets (but not at Woolworths) rather than drugs, that sort of thing. Gosh how times change...