‘I want a model life, You hear they’re all the rage, I want to live it nice, But I’ve got bills to pay, Another pointless form, Be sure it’s never late’ (Clock)

Longevity can be born of many admirable virtues – friendship, trust, the shared confidence to experiment.  But, by the same token, it can also become mired in less attractive qualities – inertia, staleness, paths of least resistance.

The dangers of the latter taking root in a band of who have been together for twenty plus years, and some fifteen albums, would seem almost overwhelming.  But Hey Colossus are vibrant proof that it is by no means inevitable.  That such experience, such bonds can be harnessed for the positive and certainly need not be a chain that constrains.

None of this happened by accident mind.  The band consciously set out to push themselves and each other.  They took their new material out on the road, playing four sold out shows in four nights in four different corners of London, refining and honing each track in the live setting.  They then took this same ethos straight into the studio – just five days, playing live, playing loud.  Heaven Was Wild is a vivid testament to the success of these efforts.  The trademarks of Hey Colossus’ noise rock infused post-hardcore are all firmly in place, with each now smouldering with a fresh intensity.

The supple muscularity of the rhythm section provides a fluid yet rock solid cornerstone.  The sinuous waves of brightly sharp riffage morph and reformulate as they lock into surging grooves or disassemble into more reflective excursions, without ever losing sight of their original identity.  The vocals add another dynamic layer as they segue from crooning drawls to more stridently assertive expressions with an impressive dexterity, bringing to mind an unholy, yet strangely considered, union of Jack Terricloth (World/Inferno Friendship Society) and Conrad Keely (And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead).

There is so much to get your teeth stuck into.  The richly layered dual vocals of Clock and the contagiously driving intensity of Death And Deliverance provide an exhilarating one-two.  The death rock-tinged Consequences and the languid swing of Party Of Fleas offer more restrained but no less enticing pleasures.  Heaven Was Wild is an album born of an instinct to get down raw and fresh, and it has paid off in spades.