Review-a-palooza #1:

The Heavy - The House That Jack Built

The Heavy are a neo-soul meets indie guitar group from Noid, England, which is a wee town near Bristol. The band is a five piece with Kelvin Swaby on vocals, Dan Taylor on guitar, Spencer Page on bass and Chris Ellul. The band started releasing singles in 2007 and dropped “Vengeance and Furious Fire” in September of that year. “The House that Dirt Built” is their sophomore follow-up and was released by Counter.

The Heavy’s got this real cool soul vibe and Kelvin rocks a killer old school R&B vocal. Lot of folks say he’s got a Curtis Mayfield voice, but the dude’s got range. On “Oh No! Not You Again!!” he can drop a James Brown meets Mick Collins wail like nobody’s business.

You can really pick up on the fact that The Heavy aren’t a one-note soul revival knock off act. They bounce around musical genres while keeping a consistent backbone. They’ve got tracks with tastes of garage rock, Sergio Leone spaghetti western themes, reggae and dub and Screaming Ronnie Hawkins rock and roll. The album is finished off with a quiet song, punctuated by piano and strings not the strongest track, but I digress.

The songs bleed cool. “How You Like Me Now?” is the type of track that Guy Ritchie would lay over a slow mo montage of his slick gangsters doing something nasty. In fact the band’s gotten a lot of mileage out of that track with it appearing on Entourage and Community, not to mention an awesome Letterman appearance.

My favourite track as of this second is “Sixteen”; a classic rock track complete with devil and sexed up femme fatale. It’s “I Put A Spell On You” (with some of the Godfather of Soul thrown in for good measure) but with the Heavy’s twist on it.

The Heavy is a cool band and totally worth a spin.

Best: Sixteen, How You Like Me Now?, Oh No! Not You Again!, Short Change Hero

The Heavy's website: http://www.theheavy.co.uk/

Check out Sixteen on YouTube here