Do you miss the 1980s? I suspect some of our readership has fond/dubious recollections of being a gangly teenager, back in the day, who wanted to be a goth, but regarded even The Mission as a little too threatening for their poptastic tastes. If only Montreal’s Heat had been around then! They would have been the answer to your prayers! For one thing, they seem to be unable to make up their minds as to whether they’d rather be The Psychedelic Furs, Midnight Oil or Men Without Hats. And for another, their songs are endlessly infectious. These are great pop songs, but one thing’s for sure – they dazzle the most when they divert from the norm, jumping into muddy puddles while Daddy Pig goes home in a huff. This eureka moment comes halfway through Overnight‘s nine song compendium, and is akin to Arcade Fire sampling Brigitte Arens’ “devenir gris” segment of the Visage classic ‘Fade To Grey‘ over a resolutely hypnotic driving rhythm. It’s called ‘Rose de Lima‘ and really is magnificent. It makes me want to fling all my clothes off and just hug everybody tightly (don’t worry, I won’t). Immediately following that is the tremendously entertaining ‘Cold Hard Morning Light‘, in which frontman Susil Sharma does his best Bob Geldof impression circa ‘Rat Trap‘. You’ll be going around yelling at everyone to “give us your fucking money” for days after hearing it.
And that’s about the size of the album really. Nine very likeable bite size chunks of “popgoth”. The constant shroud of synths ensure that it radiates warmth throughout, sometimes even bordering on Triffids territory (just listen to ‘Lush‘ and try to deny it) – actually, for a Canadian band, they do sound surprisingly Australian at times, mate, so crack open a tinny and give it a burl, you big galah. You see? I knew watching Neighbours between the years 1988-1991 would be end up being useful at some point in my life. Except that…oh yes…they’re Canadian, aren’t they?
Many of the tracks here also happily recall the vastly underappreciated Wall Of Voodoo, not least the quite splendid finale of ‘Chains‘, a deeper, darker number but one which still shimmer and shines and features some ‘Like A Hurricane‘ infused sonic guitar wails at one point. Maybe there’s a shade of Greg Dulli here and there too, but, you know, despite this multitude of references I’ve been hurling at you, admirably, Heat still sound like they have their own identity.
There really is little else to say about Overnight. All you need to know is that this a bloody good album, and ‘Rose de Lima‘ might just be the best song of 2017 so far…
Overnight is released on 20th January 2017 through Topshelf Records.
