Reasons why I am very fond of Heart-Ships:
1. That name! All I can imagine is little heart-shaped ships, or ships with big red heart-shaped sails, navigating rocky channels. Go, brave little ships, go!
2. The hand-claps/drum combo intro on Pin-Hole of Light. It says Here we go! Get ready! Stand up! It is almost time to rock out! Also the glorious little trill at the 1.15 mark that gooses the tempo and adds a frisson of traditional Celtic sound to the proceedings. You can’t really dance the jig to the whole song, but you might want to try, for parts of it.
3. Five Forks of Ligtening, which is a slow building, gradually expanding anthem about being chased around the garden by a monster with fire fingers.
4.There is a robot on the cover of the EP. I love robots. It appears to be shooting lasers out of its eyes at a heart, or parts of heart, which is awesome.
5. Ryan Cooke, their lead singer, has a rich, flexible voice, and even when it is filled with ache and sadness – perhaps especially when it is filled with ache and sadness – it soars, as you can hear below, in Air Balloon:
6. And also here, in Spray Paint:
7. This is pop music, but it is majestic, stirring pop music. Majestic, stirring, and a little off-kilter; fight songs and anthems and love songs for the few, the proud, the extremely fond of tiny boats fighting big currents and robots with eye-lasers.
