Hey Colossus – Dedicated to Uri Klangers

Speaker-shredding enormity of sound, thy name be Hey Colossus. This 90-minute double LP collects highlights from the band’s first ten years, and while it’s easy to feel swallowed up by the combination of length and volume, it’s worth taking the time to peel back the layers of their most tempestuous of cacophonies.

Molten metal, frenzied feedback and motorik grooves are the most commonly repeated themes here (notably and forcefully on the pulsing, chattering headache of Eurogrumble PTII), and the textures are fascinating. Sometimes blowing your skull wide open, sometimes rendering passages of (relatively) soothing majesty from the harshest of source material, the HC experience often amounts to a visceral catharsis rather than an emotional purge – simultaneously cerebral yet primal, and brilliant throughout.

When the infinitely softer Warmer the Belter arrives midway through, it feels like a velvet cushion amidst scraps of splintered, rusted steel... Still, who needs respite when the fray is this much fun?

Listen to: I Am the Chiswick Strangler, Warmer the Belter