Clean Cut Kid - HISS

 

Fourth album from Liverpool quartet CLEAN CUT KID out 11th November via Alcopop! Records

Lo-fi and electronic collide in the self-produced new album by the quietly making noise foursome from Liverpoool. Produced in their custom-built analogue home studio, HISS has been crafted lovingly by this group of musos and songwriters. 

Production started in late 2020 when the world ground to a halt, frontman Mike Halls notes how 'the pain of being separated from pretty much everything I love had begun to turn into music in my head'.

Halls took the opportunity to recontextualise the situation as a gift to prepare yourself for permanent separation from parents and this led to creating demos which was essentially unedited of how he was feeling. 

This vitality has melted into the long-playing album and there are twists and turns as different genres weave into the album from folk and first-person storytelling to stories about grief and a love story masquerading as a tale of depression in the same vein as Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark'.

'Little Black Space' one of the singles off the album is that love song, a piece of sonic meditation that is both euphoric but embracing of the person within this relationship. 

There is a steady stream of confidence rolling throughout this album, from the calm beginning of opener 'Our Wasted Hours' walk-on music for a band arriving to follow up 'She Take A Pill' a jammy bouncy single to the aforementioned 'Little Black Space' - that is a great opening trifecta. 

   

After that is my only gripe on the album, which is the sequencing. 'Cathy' feels like a slowdown and then the perky 'Louis, Be Brave' does not arrive until track 8. Then the album does end on a high with 'Into The Tall Grass' a metaphor for spirituality and vulnerability and then the finale which is 'Golden Ribbon' an eulogy of sorts for the passing of staying in.

The influences within the album range from Alt-J to Gomez and The Coral to The Zutons. I have mentioned a few Liverpudlian acts there, and that is deliberate due to the rich heritage that city has had in the music culture of the late twentieth century, not least from a certain other foursome who conquered the world.

The album is a journey from calm beginnings to the funereal finality of the album closer. This is an album of majesty, swagger and universality - where there is something for everyone. A gateway of openness and sentiment, HISS is a triumph for song writing and production, sticking to your beliefs and knowing that success will come your way

HISS is out from Alcopop! Records on 11th November.

Clean Cut Kid are Mike Halls (vocals/guitar), Evelyn Halls (vocals/keys), Ross Higginson (drums) and Gareth Bullock (bass).