I Heart Hiroshima

I Heart Hiroshima – ‘Candy Cut’

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Right from the name, you can tell that these kids are going to be scruffy “scribble-our-name-on-your-schoolbooks” indie-pop darlings. Like every good lo-fi outfit, I Heart Hiroshima met at a house party last year, did some jamming, decided to ignore bass guitar (who plays bass these days anyway? That’s so 1990s..) and record a cute little EP. The result is A 3 Letter Word for Candy, a debut which, rather impressively, manages to encapsulate the spirit and fervour of some of the best indie acts of the recent years.

Equal parts Pavement, Sonic Youth and Tapes ‘n Tapes, the trio all share vocal duties, making for some interesting Subways-esque texture changes as boys and girls constantly swap from lead to backing. Needless to say, the girl’s a lot better, with a sexed-up yet eerily detached voice that would probably give Interpol’s Paul Banks nightmares. The production is, naturally, mediocre (as was probably intended), but the songs are tight – and the twin-pronged guitar attack actually works, rather than simply sounding contrived. When a grassroots label pumps some serious money into their studio time, these guys will be huge.

http://whothehell.net/bv
http://whothehell.net/iuP