Hecks: My Star (Vinyl LP)
Trouble in Mind
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"Chicago trio The Hecks have been at it since 2012, starting out as the duo of guitarist Andy Mosiman & Zach Hebert. The band drafted guitarist Dave Vettraino into the fold, a recording engineer who was recording the band's s/t debut (Trouble In Mind, 2016) & ended up joining the band In 2017. The band's journey to the end result of ""My Star"" - their second album - has taken them three years. After recording an initial version of the album in 2017, The Hecks started gigging with new fourth member & keyboardist Jeff Graupner, whose synthesized squiggles added some welcome heft & swagger to the band's tunes. After reworking & rearranging much of the new material to accommodate Graupner, the band scrapped the recordings & rebuilt them from the ground up, incorporating Graupner's skills at the keys. The results speak for themselves, as ""My Star"" is a gigantic leap forward for the band, absorbing everything from ""Manscape""-era Wire to Paisley Park nu-funk to abstract new wave & art rock plucked straight from the Cold Storage playbook. Much of ""My Star""s ten tracks are designed to bewilder; the production is intentionally disorienting, with the mix tipped toward the treble, alternating from sparse to confoundingly dense at times, but never at a disservice to the songs themselves. Opener ""Zipper""s intertwining guitar jabs & synth lines herk & jerk so rapidly it's liable to break your neck, while lead track ""So 4 Real""s neon-laced dayglo soul ratchets up the mutant funk throb so tightly that the lilting, melodic guitar break at the chorus is a welcome dose of ear-candy. ""Heat Wave"" dials it back, reveling in romantic washes of synth and flange & it's yearning refrain of ""It's tearing me apart, ripping out my heart again""; a captivating, slow burning ballad unlike anything the band has done before. Meanwhile album closer (and title track) ""My Star"" is so cinematic, it feels like the lost end credits scene to a heartfelt teen drama, with it's end coda taking up the bulk of the song's near-eight minute run time. ""My Star"" is designed to make you move, you just have to let it." Zipper, Chopper, Flash, Heat Wave, The Fool, Chinatown, So 4 Real, The King Is Close, Josef Josef, My Star
"Chicago trio The Hecks have been at it since 2012, starting out as the duo of guitarist Andy Mosiman & Zach Hebert. The band drafted guitarist Dave Vettraino into the fold, a recording engineer who was recording the band's s/t debut (Trouble In Mind, 2016) & ended up joining the band In 2017. The band's journey to the end result of ""My Star"" - their second album - has taken them three years. After recording an initial version of the album in 2017, The Hecks started gigging with new fourth member & keyboardist Jeff Graupner, whose synthesized squiggles added some welcome heft & swagger to the band's tunes. After reworking & rearranging much of the new material to accommodate Graupner, the band scrapped the recordings & rebuilt them from the ground up, incorporating Graupner's skills at the keys. The results speak for themselves, as ""My Star"" is a gigantic leap forward for the band, absorbing everything from ""Manscape""-era Wire to Paisley Park nu-funk to abstract new wave & art rock plucked straight from the Cold Storage playbook. Much of ""My Star""s ten tracks are designed to bewilder; the production is intentionally disorienting, with the mix tipped toward the treble, alternating from sparse to confoundingly dense at times, but never at a disservice to the songs themselves. Opener ""Zipper""s intertwining guitar jabs & synth lines herk & jerk so rapidly it's liable to break your neck, while lead track ""So 4 Real""s neon-laced dayglo soul ratchets up the mutant funk throb so tightly that the lilting, melodic guitar break at the chorus is a welcome dose of ear-candy. ""Heat Wave"" dials it back, reveling in romantic washes of synth and flange & it's yearning refrain of ""It's tearing me apart, ripping out my heart again""; a captivating, slow burning ballad unlike anything the band has done before. Meanwhile album closer (and title track) ""My Star"" is so cinematic, it feels like the lost end credits scene to a heartfelt teen drama, with it's end coda taking up the bulk of the song's near-eight minute run time. ""My Star"" is designed to make you move, you just have to let it." Zipper, Chopper, Flash, Heat Wave, The Fool, Chinatown, So 4 Real, The King Is Close, Josef Josef, My Star