The Heavy
Great Vengeance & Furious Fire

Today, I'm about to review the debut album of The Heavy, a band I've loved and followed for many years.

The single "How You Like Me Now" became very famous in 2009, especially thanks to performances like the one on the David Letterman Show. But let's take a step back two years. We find two guys from Noid, a small village near Bath, united by a passion for R&B, who decide to form a band. These guys go by the names of Kelvin Swaby, singer, and Dan Taylor, guitarist, who recruit Chris Ellul on drums and Spencer Page on bass. The band's debut, Great Vengeance and Furious Fire, is atypical, a mix of different genres that entertains and allows the band to create its own sound. The opening track, "That Kind of Man", the first single from the album, is like a calling card, an explosive mix of rock n' roll and funk. Immediately striking is Swaby's high, clean, and sensual voice, among the band's greatest strengths. Following that, we have the b-side of the aforementioned single, "Colleen", a song driven by the horns and the singer himself, creating a beautiful rhythm. In the chorus, there's great work from Ellul on the drums. The Dap-King Horns, who have often collaborated with The Heavy and feature in an episode of the TV series Suits, made a cover of this song, but it's altogether avoidable. An EP, Colleen Remixes, with 3 different remixes of the song, will be released later. Next up is "Set Me Free", for which a video clip was made, a beautiful song supported by acoustic guitar. "You Don't Know" represents, along with "In the Morning", an example of how they know how to do great rock, with the crunch guitars, a must in many songs from the first two albums, so much so that the aforementioned two were released as singles. Both have good riffing, and "You Don't Know" even has a nice solo in the middle. In "Girl", Swaby showcases his rapping skills, but the song comes off a bit monotonous. "Doing Fine" is an excellent acoustic ballad. Following that is "Bruk Pocket Lament", a dark blues based on a repeated bass line throughout the song. The final flash, followed by a very atmospheric solo, is the cherry on top. "Dignity" is a rock in the vein of the previous ones, and the concluding "Who Needs the Sunshine?" is a melancholic ballad that ends the album well. Some versions also include "Our Special Place", the b-side of "In the Morning/You Don't Know", but the song is quite lackluster, so its absence wouldn't be a problem.

The album overall is really good, although there are some production flaws that worsen the quality, such as the overly affected voice in some songs, which gives a sort of "megaphone effect", and the overall quality of the recordings, with instruments that tend to blend into each other and a constant background hiss, as if it were playing on vinyl. However, the songs are of good quality, and this album paved the way for the band's maturation, which will probably release its new album this year. We fans wait impatiently, and in the meantime, we enjoy the beautiful works this band has given us.