hey colossus: the guillotine

Hey Colossus's latest transmission The Guillotine marks another peak for an innovative force in the realm of heavy amplification. Darker and more brooding than their recent work, Radio Static High, it's also perhaps their most richly melodic to date. The interplay of their three guitar lineup has never sounded more fluent than on these eight songs, nor their song-craft more well-defined. The Guillotine is a record whose alchemical charge arrives from a reinvention of loud rock shapes into forms both feral and fresh. Whilst Hey Colossus can still bludgeon with over-amped vigor, as on the hypnotic and devastating krautrock-Jesus Lizard hybrid of "Back In The Room", they can also deliver the haunting waltz-time serenade of "Calenture Boy" with uncompromising fortitude, with the new-found confidence and allure of Paul Sykes's vocals at the forefront. These menacing and immersive songs chronicle a band exploring a unique sound and invigorating approach in a decade in which cliches and genre pieces in the realm of the psychedelic have frequently surrounded. Here the six-piece find themselves transcending the limitations of the underground scene from whence they came, whilst exposing the paucity of inspiration in much of the guitar-rock mainstream.