We got the tip off about six piece Heart-Ships from their irrepressible performance at Leeds festival in the Summer of 2011. With only two tracks on show the promise is certainly there for this quirk-folk-pop collective.
Since they formed last year, comparisons have been cast forth like fishing nets but instantly cut adrift by Heart-Ships’ refusal to conform. Wild Beasts, Modest Mouse and Neutral Milk Hotel – the influences may be there in the middle distance, but their twisted pop sound is fiercly eccentric. “Heart of a Wrestler (A Young Man’s Struggle for Strength)” in particular is one of the best new pieces of music I’ve heard in the last twelve months. A vignette that vividly transports you to the mind’s eye of a young restless man, skewed visions ride their songs waves that from delicate, quirky almost meek toward ramshackle bearchested and masculine in the course of a few minutes.
Ryan Cooke’ vocals gowing from insecure and whispy, a rhythmic creak envelops, whilst it strums starboard toward a cresendo fixed with rum soaked pirate singalongs, foot stomping hollers and mad eye’d calls to arms. Mumford and Sons may have defined the sensitive communal singalong for some in the last few years, but with their emotional juxtaposition of sensivity and brutality: Heart-Ships are casting forth to somewhere special we hope in 2012 we’re around to bare witness to it…
