Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Excitements, the feeling of raw power, of having a band play in your ears that know exactly when to lick the guitar string on the ear drum and perform with entanglement and a fist firmly clenched right up infront of your face; no malice, no sense of terror or unabridged alarm, this is just a group of musicians to whom the passion has become one of revolution and the smack of the great Punk ethic.

The Museum of Backward Hats explain carefully on the back cover of their new E.P., Melancholy, that the songs are for the listener’s “Pleasure & Edification”, yet surely this is a huge understatement, this is truly three songs that have the stroke of another period’s majesty wrapped indelibly around their soul; pleasure becomes unhindered desire for more, edification is the memory that once upon a time music was not only a teacher to those who knew not they were lost, but also the great healer to those damaged by all the funk that life could throw at them.

The three songs recorded by the Museum of Backward Hats, Don’t Have You, Me and Freud and the E.P. title track Melancholy are bursting at the seams, a veritable offering of power, glory and the audible stride of a thousand earphones marching towards the same punchy beat. It is a stampede, a swagger and a protest all is one, not one built from arrogance or some sort of deluded pride, but one of truth and mercy and one that is so comfortable to listen to.

For Brian Chute, Jed O’Toole, Nick Davies and Stu Cheetham this is the E.P. that surely gives them their notice of just how good they are, a well kept secret no more and if there was any justice in this often intemperate, mostly moody land, then one of the songs, it matters not which one, would be unfailing in its charm to be reaching across the generation divide and have people buying in their droves. Memory is a great healer, it has the ability to put a song out and be remembered because it alludes to previous captains of the day and carries greatness within it.

Melancholy is that greatness, it is not to be rejected, but revelled in and partied amongst; for melancholy is the happy for deep people.

Ian D. Hall