“Who ?” I hear you ask, well for those of you who don’t know, Hot Monocles are from the wonderful city of Birmingham, made up of four great musicians and friends of mine; according to their Myspace and Facebook, “Matt Bangs, Jon Slaps, Will Plucks and Dan Screams” sounds simple, but believe me they do it in style.
After a long 9 month break from gigging to concentrate on writing new material and recording their debut album, “The Medium and the Message”, they returned Saturday night to play at the Adam and Eve pub in Digbeth. The plan for them was to play a standard 30 – 40 minute support set, playing first to get back into the swing of playing to an audience. In a random turn of events, they ended up headlining the evening, playing longer than originally intended and getting an encore. Thank you kind randomness.
In all honesty I wasn’t sure what to expect, I’ve always loved their music but having talked to Dan, he told me that most of the material tonight was all new and a lot of my favourites such as “Fairer Eyes” and “Take your best shot”, had been cut out of the set, although I was excited to hear the new material, I was slightly disappointed.
This soon changed though, from the off I could see what a 9 month period of purely concentrating on development had done to Hot Monocles. They have managed to successfully maintain the distinct sound that the current fans have got to know, and just added a whole lot more, (or with the risk of cliché, they’ve cranked it “up to eleven”) All of their songs are “Epic” with lack of finding a better word.
By the end of the night I didn’t even miss my old favourites, I’d just gained a whole lot more, “I want it all”, “I have an aching” and “To the Wall” are all great tracks to look out for. If this is what we’ve got to look forward to with “The Medium and the Message”, I for one can’t wait.
For an example of some of their older stuff and videos some new tracks go to Hot Monocles Myspace
There’s also a fan page:
Facebook Fan Page
Russ x
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