Neo-jazz types plundering the archives of every impenetrably messy musician of the last decade or so, Hi Red Center’s sense of what does and doesn’t comprise an accessible composition is a little haywire to say the least.
A four-piece whose live career to date has seen them appear with the likes of USAISAMONSTER and Deerhoof, they break standard rock songs down into their core components – bass and synth parts lying scattered, vocals fractured and bruised – and reassemble the clutter into something like rock, only with all the jigsaw pieces forced together in the wrong places. The result is dizzying, sometimes annoying but occasionally magnificent – split-second bursts of dance beats cut through sheets of screaming noise, while deadpan vocals stutter and spit their way through ten songs of patience-testing tomfoolery.
Vaguely Krautrocking at times, definitely nodding to modern-day jazz and unashamedly ploughing down an entirely unique road with scant regard for critical acclaim or monetary success, Hi Red Center are an interesting band for sure. Whether that translates as quality in your opinion, well, we can’t possibly know, but if you value creativity over commercialism, bend your ears the way of Architectural Failures post haste.
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6Mike Diver's Score