HIS ELECTRO BLUE VOICE - Mental Hoop LP

Highly recommended.

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"At this point, His Electro Blue Voice are underground survivors: what other band got started with S-S Records and Sacred Bones, jumped to Sub Pop, then struck up a deal with Iron Lung a decade later? And all from the remote peninsula known as Italy, no less! They’ve more or less been operating with the same sound for all this time too, heavy-grooving laser-guided post-punk, and it still suits them on Mental Hoop, perhaps better than ever. Songs here remind me of the punkest Melvins tracks, or a particularly heavy Venom P. Stinger, or maybe even Neu! under the influence of The Jesus Lizard. Many tracks have that classic krautrock drum propulsion, as though the song is being driven into an endless horizon… in case I ever wondered what Moon Duo would sound like reconfigured to play hardcore, I need only reach for Mental Hoop. There’s even a track that repurposes the chorus to Dr. Octagon’s “Earth People”, in case you thought HEBV were starting to get predictable. It’s deceptively melodic too, as though the group is tempted by populist rock riffing even if they insist on scuffing it up. I’m just hoping they can find a way to work with 12XU, Drag City and Total Punk over the next ten years." - YGR