ninehertz

How do you approach writing a review of The Heads? Of an album twenty years in the making, one these greats have labelled their last, an album with twelve tracks including a twenty-minute piece in the middle… And, while we’re at it, when Stewart Lee has already written the definitive review of this album on The Quietus?

Lee even mentions the “Roadburn Festival-type rock fans” who got into the band, which was the conduit (if not first exposure) for my love of The Heads when they expanded and melted my mind in Tilburg back in 2008. So is this worth anything? Will anyone reading this not already know of these Bristol legends? Maybe not. But it is precisely because of that love I feel the need to add my own, inferior words, perhaps less a standard review, more as a eulogy.

I came to them originally through my teenage love of stoner rock, the band incorrectly bumbled in with the genre in its heyday, a clumsy weed leaf and Union Jack adorned Frank Kozik-artwork release on Man’s Ruin highlighting the awkwardness with which they sat within the surrounds. I knew it listening too, if not exactly how, it was clear this wasn’t their true state, not stoner or even pure heavy psych.

I know more now of course. They encouraged my musical growth, finding the path from stoner to psych, taking in The Stooges and the vital sounds of the wider Detroit garage rock era, latter as I read Julian Cope’s books on Krautrock and the long history of Japanese psych. Tracing it back, The Heads were my opening to it all.

yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell captures everything I think of whenever my mind might have drifted towards any point in their back catalogue. The first track, Hits Like a Dove, alone brings nostalgia flooding back, as the drawled garage psych and acid rock mystique is instantly familiar. Cardinal Fuzz follows with Iron Man styled droning guitar noise and melodic almost folky turns, all encapsulated within a fug of cloud.

It’s About Time… And Space is the aforementioned twenty minuter, the kind which will have a certain section of their fanbase drooling alone. It sits strangely within the middle, and I take in on its own; a hazy, dazed jam built through repeating cycles that entrap you, something you only realise as it clicks off and your vision resets. That there are a couple of sub-two minute tracks later on expand on the idea that this is a true gathering of the pillars of classic The Heads, one last sightseeing tour of the memories of their art. (The latter of these, Bullet’s Fly but No Bees stands out with its punk energy and engagement.)

Not that this is a band playing their hits of an era gone by. This is no final payday, rehashed compilation for tired old souls who lost their creative sparks years ago. yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell is vibrant, alive and new. If this is indeed their swansong, then it perfectly encapsulates the niche they have lived and why they have been so revered. Farewell.