Features Hookworms

You can tell whether a genre is en vogue by seeing how often it’s referred to by the bands who’re playing it - there are positively hundreds of people out there making IDM at the minute who prefer to tag themselves as ‘chillwave’ when the time to upload comes around. Hookworms aren’t ones to beat around the bush in quite the same manner, though they couldn’t even if they wanted to. Far removed from the world of jaded Balaeric beats, the band create a racket that is indebted to the masters of yore who practised psychedelia and krautrock.

And so, like you might expect, the songs often tip over the 6 minute mark and don’t bat an eyelid about doing so - indeed, they somehow managed to sound curtailed even when they fit within those timeframes, as if they’re simply a snippet of a larger, more expansive tapestry that they simply couldn’t fit onto tape. If that’s the case, we’d certainly like to hear the offcuts, with the self titled EP due out on cassette later in the summer, it’d be lovely to have more than it’s 4 meandering tracks to soundtrack any potential sunny days the next few months may have in store.

That Hookworms have managed to pump out a release that sounds confident enough to fill an arena yet has enough niche appeal and nous to appeal to the kind of bids who revel in this weirdo stuff should come as no surprise - the group’s history is intertwined with that of Spectrals, however different the sounds. There are comparisons to be drawn with fellow Yorkshiremen The Music too, if only for the vocalists upper octave caterwauling and the love of an extensive jam. But whilst The Music’s time in the sun was willfully short, you get the sense that Hookworms don’t sound quite so ephemeral.

S/T by Hookworms