In the 1951 film ‘When Worlds Collide’ the Earth is on course for destruction from a foreign entity leaving mankind in a frantic battle against time to escape in a space ark destined for a brave new world. Over 60 sixty years later, we again find ourselves on the brink of annihilation, this time self-inflicted, as the world sinks deeper into an abyss of it’s own making with no space ark on the horizon. Leicester may not be the obvious location in which to instigate a salvage mission but then again “Heroes are not made. They are born out of circumstances and rise to the occasion when their spirit can no longer co-exist with the hypocrisy of injustice to others” to quote Shannon L Alder. Step forward then, FiveHead.
As 2018 spluttered into life, I tipped this Leicester four-piece as ones to watch as the countdown to our inevitable apocalypse commences. Now, with the Easter redemption busily offering up potential salvation, FiveHead have burst into life like a defiant daffodil, with their own survival pack How To Bombproof Your Horse, a 4-track EP which dissolves your fears and woes in a bath of acid, preparing you anew for the cosmic after-party. The EP opens with ‘Microwave’ or ‘Popty Ping’ if you have the Welsh version, which takes approximately 248 seconds of guitar maelstrom to wipe the past from your ears and paint a new begining of potential hope. Then ‘Juxtapose’ holds up a mirror to our already fractured dreams and screams bloody murder until we can take no more. It’s a six minute beating and its brutality has me wondering if this is what life now looks like to the millenials of today. How did we, as parents. allow such nihilistic foreboding to become the new normal?
The battle between cascading guitars and the unrelenting percussive punishment on ‘Trebuchet’ is a ‘Duelling Banjos’ for the modern age, a track which showcases the multifarious talents of the band to keep the song teetering on the edge of oblivion without ever toppling into chaos; a metaphor for our global capitulation perhaps. The EP shudders to a gruelling end with the hynotically chilling ‘Hot/Hot’ which builds to a cataclysmic denouement with the words “Stay relaxed/Keep distracted” positively propelled into your brain by four guys who have clearly seen the future and are desperate for you to act. Now.
As debut releases go, this is a mighty chisel to your insides; as impressive as it is ominous. If FiveHead are to become our saviours, the builders of our sonic space ark then I for one want ‘Hot/Hot’ playing as we take off and head for a better life. The sound of eternal damnation never felt so damn addictive. Grab the future before it’s too late.
How To Bombproof Your Horse is out now
