The fact that the mercurial HATS™ manages to do something new, intriguing, and engaging with music (if interesting isn’t too uninteresting a word for a music review) is a given. But for me, the talking point is how they develop a recognizable signature sound and still manage to push boundaries within it. Surely, the two should be mutually exclusive: either you are definable and recognizable or exploratory and changeable. The wonderful conundrum at the heart of HATS™ music is that it does both in equal measure.
There has always been a spacious quality to HATS™ music, shimmering transparency and delicacy, and that is still in evidence, but so too is a buoyant pop vibe, something that may have always been present but here just taken further than before. And so, as the song heads towards the finishing line, there is a more intense set of sonics making their presence felt, sounds that turn the song’s last hurrah into a shoegaze odyssey rather than the usual indie-dream pop flitter.
And, when all taken together, as I said in the opening paragraph, these contrasting and complimenting and conflicting and conflating sonics make for a sound that pushes musical boundaries while also delivering to existing fans what they want. And that is an amazing, not to mention exceedligly smart, thing to be able to do.
