Canada. Butt of the occasional xenophobic joke. Or two. Quarantine-breached den of prolonged musical impotence. And, lest we forget, the place that put Elton John’s Di Death Mix of ‘Candle in the Wind’ at Number 1 for like a trillion and one weeks. We need to be reminded of these things, we don’t want them happening to us. But hey Canada, big guy, come back and give us a hug. All is hereby forgiven. So alright, you spent years trying to communicate through the international language of monotony, sorry, we stopped listening. Yes, there was that shrill whining, maybe you were upset – we were, so we ignored you. But seeing as you’ve had us rammed against the headboard, scooping our heart out of our chest with an incessant fever-pitch barrage for the past 31 minutes and 54 seconds, you’re back on side.
Not that geographical comparisons of that sort matter, at all. This is an inverse plain, a different world. It’s a land of buttoned-up-to-the-collar tunes, tight strutting, devilish style, where everything said is a point made well, then underlined for good measure. Definite music, no pissing about. It’s a sunny island republic out on its own, sliding around a grid reference between early 80s UK and early 21st century US new wave, ancestry stretching directly to the likes of XTC, The Stranglers and especially Elvis Costello and The Attractions. But with a wider lineage reaching much further back to ‘60s pop foundations. The kids are wearing Radio 4 and The Strokes t-shirts there these days, natch, but the memories and principles remain. There’s probably a plaque or two up as well.
It’s easy to write a stop-you-in-your-stride-and-trip-you-up pop song. It must be, it seems so damn obvious. But if it’s not then Hot Hot Heat are exemplary prodigies. From the looped drawl of opener ‘Naked In The City Again’ to the ravenous, red-eyed ‘House Of the Rising Sun’-esque ‘Bandages’, to the Clash doing an amphetamine-fuelled slow-dance on ‘Aveda’, to the exhaustingly bombastic final pairing of ‘Save Us SOS’ and ‘In Cairo’ there isn’t a single chink in their armour. Solid gold, all the way through. And singer Steve Bays has the most incredibly stretched, syrupy climax of a voice, riding the ups and downs like Elvis Costello riding Radio 4’s rhythm track on a raft of flimsy plastic. As far as yins and yangs go, the most breathtaking pop album since ‘Is This It’ ain’t a bad response to whatever Avril Lavigne’s l8est effort is.