Bath quartet The Heavy will return on April 1 with ‘Hurt & The Merciless’ (Counter Records), their self- produced fourth album and their most powerful and personal to date. The band will launch ‘Hurt & The Merciless’ with a very special intimate show at London’s Moth Club on February 16 (already sold-out), and will embark on a major UK & European tour in May. The Heavy have also announced a string of upcoming US headline dates plus shows at SXSW and Coachella Festivals.
The video for lead single ‘Since You Been Gone’ – high-octane soul with Motown horns and dirty guitar – has been directed by Focus Creeps (Arctic Monkeys, King Krule) and stars Thomas Turgoose (‘This Is England’) and Abigail Hardingham (‘Nina Forever’) as a couple in the throes of a break-up.
Perhaps best known for their global hit ‘How You Like Me Now?’, The Heavy’s genre-blending sound has been described as fusing “Prince, The Rolling Stones and 60’s Garage” (Q) and “breathing sweaty life into garage-punk, ska, voodoo funk, swamp rock, dub, blues and classic R&B/soul” (Uncut). It’s an intoxicating mix that has brought the band considerable international success. They’ve had over 100 million online streams and their songs have appeared in many of the coolest films and TV series of the past few years, including soundtracking trailers to two of 2016’s most important releases, ‘The Hateful Eight’ and ‘The Big Short’.
Whilst making ‘Hurt & The Merciless’, The Heavy went through some dark times. There was death, divorce, near break-ups and breakdowns. It all feeds into their most exhilarating record yet. “We attack all of these things,” says frontman Kelvin Swaby, “and the only way we know how to do that is by writing incredible music.”
Everything Swaby and his band-mates guitarist Dan Taylor, bassist Spencer Page and drummer Chris Ellul have achieved over the past decade feels like it has been leading to this point. They’ve mixed the lightning bolts of their live show with a batch of their strongest songs yet. ‘Hurt & The Merciless’ is the sound of a thrilling rock’n’roll band fighting back.