Make no mistake about it…..
Of all the bands – let not call them side projects, as they are worth more than that – Ginger has been in whilst in The Wildhearts and without, MV has long held the suspicion that Hey! Hello! is the one he liked best.
Originally emerging as part of a three album Pledge project a few years back, the shimmering, sunny completely unashamed rock n roll vibe of the record was at odds with the lyrics (in the way that Ginger’s best songwriting always was) and it spawned the quite fantastic “How I Survived The Punk Rock Wars”. All was set, then, for album number two.
But anyone who has ever followed the career of Ginger knows that life doesn’t run smooth, and singer Hollis did a flit on the eve of a tour, meaning that new a singer was needed, but displaying all the stoicism you’d expect from him, they ploughed on and as he puts it on “Loud And Fucking Clear” (which may actually be about the situation) “meanwhile back in Albion/ as the rain beats down and the band play on/lift your head and sing along/that’s how we do it here”.
It could actually be a metaphor for Ginger’s entire career, but let’s not get too deep about it, its rock n roll after all, and the even better news is the song – hell, the album – is a copper bottomed, shiny belter.
On “…Clear” the quartet found a similar vibe too “Stormy In The North, Karma In The South” – one of the most overlooked pieces of brilliance The Wildhearts managed, but it’s the song that follows that convinces that “Too” is really very special. “Can’t Stand You (Hurting Me”) is obscenely catchy, it should be mournful, but its anything but, its uplifting and empowering all at once, but is only one gem in 11 here.
“Lets Get Emotional” – the first song they revealed to coincide with scrapped touring plans in the spring – is screeching, stomping punk rock, “A History Of Lovers” is countrified and has a kind of Jason And The Scorchers feel, “All Around The World” shimmies, shakes and all but discos its way into your conscience, while there’s something wantonly gleeful about “This Ain’t Love” which is juxtaposed with the words that say: “were you dropped upon your head by your mum as a baby?”
Although Hey! Hello! is a proper band – The Rev does a wonderful job on guitar, and Toshi is up to his usual exemplary standards on bass – it does need saying that no one writes songs like Ginger does. “Champagne” sees us getting together over a line of cocaine for example, while the quite brilliant “Kids” is the perfect antidote to those songs of cloying sentimentality that others might try. Here, we should “make no mistake about it, Kids are gonna screw you up” and it is perhaps the only song in the history of the world to rhyme “ratbag” with “toerag” and manage to turn the line “creepy little motherfucker” into a harmony of Queen-esque proportions. But then not many albums manage a song in Japanese over a disco beat – this one does, as “Body Parts” from Ginger’s “Albion” album is given a makeover.
The record is ended with “Perfect” which is pure rock n roll….urmm…. perfection, probably about the history of the band themselves but it’s not about the past, it’s a gleeful look to the future.
A magnificent song, it ends a collection with more focus than you’d imagine at the outset, and is a fitting way for one of the best new bands we have on these shores to, well, say hello again.
Rebooted and retooled, Hey! Hello! sound incredible here.
Rating 9/10
