Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate
is a duo, sometimes trio, based in London, UK. They merge a number of genres from
prog/alt rock to ambient, minimalist, classical to funk and even metal. Malcolm
Galloway handles vocals, lead guitar, keyboards/synths and programming. Mark
Gatland is on bass, additional and slide guitars, keyboards/synths, Chapman
Stick, and backing vocals. Kathryn Thomas joins them on select songs playing
the flute and doing background vocals. The
Confidence Trick is their sixth album and it’s a collection of songs with
an overall theme of cognitive errors and our repeated failure to learn from
history. It will be out on July 15th.
I consider myself a progressive
rock fan to a degree. While there are some bands that I adore like Pink Floyd
and Yes, and I do enjoy some of Genesis’s output, for the large part, I don’t
seem to appreciate what fans love so much about this genre of music. The endless
instrumental parts common to prog rock sometimes leave me scratching my head as
to what is so great about them. For instance, Yes’s Tales from Topographic Oceans is an album that I can only listen to
once in a blue moon. And I could never get into Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. For the record, my fave Yes album
is Going for the One, as for Genesis,
it’s Selling England by the Pound. And
while I love almost everything Pink Floyd has done since Dark Side of the Moon (save for The
Final Cut), I’m not too keen on what preceded it. All this to say that
while I understand the craftsmanship of prog rock musicians, it isn’t always my
cup of tea. A lot of The Confidence Trick
falls under that umbrella for me.
“Silence is a Statement” is a
great opener and Kathryn Thomas’s flute really enhances its follow-up, “Back Where
I Started.” “End of the Line” is a quieter song and definitely one of the
highlights of the album. “Perky Pat” is an instrumental and for me, it overstayed
its welcome and I found most of its six-minute length to be quite repetitive. “World
War Terminus” is a solid tune with a timely commentary on the state of the
world. “Pretending to Breathe” is another instrumental, a more minimalist and
meditative track that I found used its lengthy runtime much better than the
previous one. “Another Plague” is another lengthy piece with a perfect harmony
of guitars and piano with great social commentary. Definitely one of my favourite
tracks on this record. “Refuge” runs a little over ten minutes and falls more
into the classical/orchestral category rather than prog rock and would fit well
in a movie. It’s a beauty and doesn’t feel its length. “Interlude” is an aptly-titled
instrumental that isn’t bad, but feels like it could’ve been left out of the
record. “The Confidence Trick” is the mostly instrumental title track and it’s
a terrific composition. “Lava Lamprey” is the last instrumental of the album
and to me felt similar to “Perky Pat” in its repetitive structure. “All Empires
Fall” is a proggy song with great rhythms and kind of a rap woven into it and I
really dug it. “Cygnus” is the 13th and final song and feels like an epilogue to a
musical of sorts.
Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate’s
The Confidence Trick is an overall
pretty solid album. In my opinion, it suffers at times from overly long pieces,
but then again, in true prog rock fashion, this is bound to be part of the
attraction for prog rock aficionados. In an era of short-attention span, its hour
and nine-minute length might feel excessively long to the casual prog dabbler,
but will no doubt rejoice hardcore prog/alt rock listeners. In terms of
musicianship and songwriting, this band is at the top of their game. The Confidence Trick comes recommended mainly
to fans of classic progressive rock and instrumental music enthusiasts in general.
Hats Off Gentlemen on Bandcamp: https://hatsoffgentlemen.bandcamp.com/album/the-confidence-trick
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