Kerouac - Heavy Hearted

 

Kerouac, the best hardcore band the UK has produced? 

Well I’ll leave it up to you to decide that one, although if you were to come down on their side of the fence a lot of people would be there with you. One thing is for certain though; if you want to work out the answer you will need to listen to ‘Heavy Hearted’, Kerouac’s masterful yet disappointingly short discography LP.

For a band that only released thirteen songs in their lifetime a discography LP may seem a little extravagant. Thirteen tracks (including a few demos), a remix and a cover. No B-sides, no rarities or unreleased gems.  You may ask, ‘Why should I care?’.

In short, there isn’t a dud track on the album. Kerouac are that rare gem, a band that never recorded a bad song. They are also a band that despite releasing a number of splits and EPs never recorded a full length. As a fan you have never been able to listen to them go all out on an LP and simply get lost in song after song. ‘Heavy Hearted’ changes that.

From the slow building title track that throbs with spite and malice to the final chaotic ending that is ‘Fiends’ (probably the band’s finest moment) the album is pure gold. ‘Pale’ is a whirlwind of feedback and screaming, ‘A Sheep, a well’ is more dissonant and threatening than many people would think is possible in three minutes and twenty six seconds, driven by the kind of drumming that you’d expect needed four arms to pull off. ‘I Owe Some People…’ is more of a straight up hardcore stomp but is pulled off with a finesse that few bands could hope to achieve. The list keeps going, ‘Our Father’s Guns’ is malevolent and ear shredding while ‘Porcelain’  is brooding, lead heavy and in its own way beautiful. Sure this is in no way a happy record, but it’s alive with passion none the less.

I could keep going if I wanted to. Every track deserves attention for different reasons and if I had the time I could probably bore you to death by telling you how each song makes me feel. In the end though it is really something that has to be heard to be believed. Sure, the demos and remix are interesting and the cover is pretty out there but the real merit of ‘Heavy Hearted’ is (as mentioned above) that it gives you a chance to listen to it all at once, to enjoy the art of a brilliant band that is sadly no more. And if, as the final notes of ‘Fiends’ die away you don’t feel a little bit sad, there is probably something wrong with you.

Patchx