Last year, the fine folk of Booze Cruise were putting on regular live streams every couple of weeks which were jam packed with amazing acts from all over the world. One of my highlights was when Swiss punks Überyou put together a full band show. Added on to the end of that video was a short set from a new band featuring members of Überyou. That band was The High Times and I was instantly a fan. Back in April the band finally released their debut album Heat through Gunner Records and Say-10 Records.
The first of the nine songs on the album is the title track, The Heat. The Heat is a melodic pop punk banger that does a super job of introducing you to The High Times. The guitars have a warmth to them that welcome you in and Dom’s vocals stand out immediately. The track is also super catchy so you’ll be singing along with the band in no time. I particularly enjoyed the “whoas” that build up towards each verse. Sometimes starts off at a slower pace and you can definitely hear soome Überyou in the style. It’s a sombre feeling song about missing and yearning for someone from a past relationship and how it will make you feel more right with the world. There’s a nice familiarity to the music that’s like putting on old shoes. This might be partly down to the “whoa-ohs” that quickly get stuck in your head. The third song, Good Company, is an uplifting song about making sure people know that they’re not alone even when they’re at their lowest. Of course it’s another big sing-along, this will give the listener a wonderful feeling of catharsis. A song that I’m sure will be a big hit when The High Times play it live.
Lose Control has a great energetic melody to it. It’s not super fast but is played at a tempo that really gets you pumped. This makes perfect sense as the song is about what its title suggests – Losing Control. This is another song that I can see going down really well live. On the fifth song, Nothing Matters, The High Times begin in quite a heavy fashion. When Dom’s vocals come in the song turns into a bit of an anthem for living life your own way, ignoring what other people say. I really liked the switch in tempos between chorus and verse and the addition of a male vocal during the song’s middles section gave the track a fresher feeling. Trouble Again sees The High Times move into an indie and, dare I say, pop territory. This is the song that I would play someone who wouldn’t normally listen to punk music as a way to introduce them to the sound. Seems like a good starting point for a new fan. Dom’s voice is perfectly suited to this style and shows off what an excellent singer she is.
In The End sees the band revert to a more familiar style. Dom’s vocals feel more muted than at any other point of the album, particularly in the verses. This really made me pay extra attention to the lyrics of the song. In The End is about finding your own special place where you feel safe and fit in. This is something we all appreciate and it makes you feel better. I would guess that we’ve all missed our special places enormously over the past 18 months. The penultimate song on Heat is titled Blew Up My Radio. This track has a bit of an old school rock ’n’ roll vibe as well as a country music twang in the vocals. Writing that sentence makes me think that this shouldn’t work as a punk rock song but it really really does. Blew Up My Radio is about the frustration in the fact that a lot of modern music doesn’t have the same passion that it used to. I really related to the track as I certainly feel the same with not really getting a lot of new, mainstream music. The final track is Figure Out Impossible. Really mixing things up, the track starts out with some male vocals, something that hasn’t happened at all on the album until this point. This really grabs the listener for this final song. The track starts out slowly with the vocals adding a load of emotion to the song. It builds to a more high tempo chorus where Dom takes over the lead vocals. The use of both vocalists on the song is superb and something I kind of wish the band had done more on the album. This is a big way to finish – a big fists in the air sing-along to complete a fine album.
Heat is an excellent debut from The High Times. I can see them being a regular at festivals throughout Europe and hopefully further afield in the future. Big things are surely on the horizon for this band.
Like The High Times on Facebook here.
This review was written by Colin Clark.
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