Sunday 8 November 2009

Review - Hopeless Heroic - Mechanical Lions The EP

Hopeless Heroic - Mechanical Lions The EP

View The Review

2 out of 10

I think we can lay the blame for Hopeless Heroic's crystal meth Muse squarely with MTV. Everything can only last a few seconds; otherwise the audience will be bored. Oh, and don't just play one song at a time - sound like you're playing at least three or four. Just to make sure your listeners don't have any time to think. It's cool, right? That's the main thing. It can be a musical interpretation of a dinosaur buggering a pheasant but so long as some skinny telly-bot with the right hair says it's cool, then the kiddy pound / dollar / whatever is satisfied.

The band also makes a thing of having a violinist, like they've let their classically-trained mate in to 'give it some class'. And well they might, for without the fiddle the music is standard sub-Emo bombastic bollocks. By the time we get to track three the band are name-checking Spinal Tap and one wonders what floats down behind them during a live set. A giant fist, perhaps. Or an enlarged copy of the first Rage Against The Machine album, on fire, inside the mouth of a plastic clown. You have no time to think and I don't think you're supposed to. I just kept seeing Zane Lowe jumping around making the 'devil's horn' sign with his hands. It's just wrong.

Listen: www.myspace.com/hopelessheroic

Tracklist:
1. Mechanical Lions
2. Guinea Pig Syndrome
3. Blindly Apparent
4. You Got What You Deserved
5. Biting Nails and Watching Clocks

3 comments:

Wazza said...

I must admit that I am a little shocked and quite speechless to read such a load of shit in my entire life. Surely this dribble that appears before me must only come from an ex fart in the wind band member or a parent of a child that is currently rebelling against the ways of his catholic father...

Hopeless heroic are certainly not ''sub-Emo bombastic bollocks'' that you have so kindly stated in your review, I do ask that you stop playing your ''fart in the wind'' bands disc or the video of the dinosaur bugging a pheasant and actually listen to the EP. They are a band who is full of energy and pushing the boundary's of your average MTV skinny Emo bands that are out there.

Just read what was written by rock 3 music about them -
''British band Hopeless Heroic who Fuse the disparate elements of Muse, Mozart and Metallica with the pump and grind of Hip Hop, Hopeless Heroic are as distinctive as they are driven. Intended to assume some individuality, the result forms an edgy yet commercial sound, as monstrous as it is beautiful''

or

The wise words of Jim Gellatly at BBC Radio Scotland -
"Listening to the Mechanical Lions EP is like being strapped to a runaway train passing through an endless series of landscapes at top speed - it's a blurry, enervating, thrilling ride. "If Hopeless Heroic were a drug they'd be a contemporary mongrel of street amphetamine and old school dreamy Ecstasy. And I'd be standing on the corner waiting for my man every night.''

Now surely that is them breaking the mould of the stereo typical skinny "Emo" or "Scene" band out there, they are actually using the art of a classical very well trained violist to cut through the the shit out there like a knife edge... so I suggest you return back to that Syphilis and Bacterial Vaginosis hole that you have crawled out of and start attacking your wrists with a rusty blade while thinking about the useless bucket of wank that you have just written...

unfitwellhappy said...

While I don't usually comment on reviews, I feel in this case I need to.

I went to see these guys play not too long ago, and as a die-hard drum & bass fan, I wouldn't say that their musical genre is entirely my style..... but.... and this is a big but...... It's rare that a band put a smile on my face for the right reasons...

While off the stage the band may appear to be relaxed - they actually work incredibly hard and as soon as they get on being their craft it pays off - their entire personas change and morph in to a huge mix of energy, sweat and noise and damn do they pull it off extremely well.

If you are for one second unsure about their EP, then I do suggest you go and see them live and I guarantee you that you will be a convert.

Jo said...

are you kidding - what a crap review - did you even listen to this EP - think not!!

Jo