CD Odyssey Disc 533: The Heavy

Like the Terminator making his way through a police department looking for Sarah Connors, the CD Odyssey makes its way through my CD collection, relentless in its mission to review every album.  Obviously, there is less shooting.

Disc 533 is…. The House That Dirt Built

Artist: The Heavy

Year of Release: 2009

What’s up with the Cover?  I assume this is the dollhouse that Dirt built.  Mr. Dirt decided his house should be decorated with a spirograph wall hanging, a drum kit, a giant human skull and a cartoon lamb.  I think the clear message is that you can come over for a jam session or an art lesson, but don’t go in the basement, because Mr. Dirt is one messed up dude.

How I Came To Know It:  I had heard a single off of this album, “How You Like Me Now?” because the band sold it for a car company commercial and various movie trailers, but I didn’t really know anything beyond that.  Sheila got me this album for Christmas, and I’m glad she did.

How It Stacks Up:  Apparently The Heavy have three albums, but I’ve just got the one, so can’t really stack it up.

Rating:  3 stars but a solid 3.

James Brown meets the Kills and decides to learn to sing falsetto.  That’s about the best I can do to sum up “The Heavy,” an English band that defies description for both good and ill.

These guys have a strong background in R&B, but it has an outsider rock edge.  The signature song on this record, “How You Like Me Now?” is a classic example, where a James Brown-like Grade-A riff leads the song off, but there is also enough fuzzy guitar (and at one point an almost Dire Straits like piano) to keep the song from ever becoming too derivative.

Also in the band’s favour is lead singer Kelvin Swaby, who has great range and power, and is particularly strong at the high end of his range.  He doesn’t get down and growl, but he still finds time to rub a lot of dirt on his vocals.

The band is exceptionally tight, which is usually a good thing, but there are times where they are a little too perfect, and it takes away from the organic quality that R&B inspired music needs to have to truly soar.  There were a couple of places that it sounded like they were sampling themselves.  It is important that even when keeping perfect rhythm to always let the song progress organically.

I don’t think this is the band’s fault as much as it is the production, which has a few too many effects layered on.  At its worst, the overly clever re-arrangements had me thinking of those Verve Remix albums from the early oughts that I’ve treated unkindly in previous reviews.  A band this talented musically doesn’t need all that stuff fuzzing out their voices or making echo effects; they can do that just with the strength of their playing and Swaby’s grit.

“The House That Dirt Built” ranges all over in terms of musical influences, often reaching pretty hard to show diversity.  There are good reaches, however. “Short Change Hero” which begins with sounds of thunderstorms and a lonely guitar that sounds straight out of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western theme song.  Here the layered production serves the song beautifully, because the song by its very nature is already over the top.  When Swaby starts his high falsetto over the instruments, accompanied by the sexy rattle of castanets, I was completely sold.

Less enjoyable is the reggae inspired “Cause for Alarm” which is catchy enough but again, lacks the organic quality that is a critical part of what makes reggae great.  Yet just when I feel out of it, the next song is “What You Want Me To Do” comes along, full of squawk box like the Beastie Boys “Check Your Head” album but with an even grittier rock edge.  It shouldn’t work, but again The Heavy pull it off.

The album ends with “Stuck” which is a down tempo soul ballad.  The previous ten songs (yes, the album is a tasteful 37 minutes) have had various degrees of pretentiousness, and does a surprisingly good job of holding all that self-absorption together.  “Stuck” strips all that away and the band settles in to something perfectly between  U2 and Hot Chocolate.

Many of the songs on “The House That Dirt Built” are edited for radio length and have a displeasing ‘make me famous’ vibe.  At 5:26 “Stuck” takes its time, but doesn’t overstay its welcome.  It just tells the simple tale of someone waiting on the woman he loves to choose him or set him free.  It reminded me of the 1974 classic by the O’Jays’ “You Got Your Hooks in Me.”

The Heavy may over-decorate their product in places, but at no point do I feel like they mailed it in, so while I only gave this album three stars, its three stars with a lot of positives.

Best tracks:  How You Like Me Now?, Short Change Hero, What You Want Me To Do, Stuck