Category: Hadda Be

This album was previously mentioned in despatches last April as a recommendation for some new music.

Another Life is the debut album by Hadda Be, and is available, here, from Last Night From Glasgow, or alternatively you see if your local indie record store has a copy (or would be happy enough to order one in).

As I said back in April, it’s a fabulous and very tasty slice of indie-pop at its finest.  You’ll find shimmering guitars, punchy choruses, wonderful melodies and a bunch of songs that, for the most part, come and go around the three-minute mark, all of which, aside from the obligatory ballad, have the ability to get even the most reticent folk out of their chairs so that shapes can be thrown on the dance floor.

Here’s a reminder of the two promos made for the singles that I posted back then:-

A third single was subsequently released, the closing track on the album. The band call it a love letter to the National Health Service, and singer Amber came up with the lyric about her experiences of working within it as a nurse, It also features a speech by Nye Bevan, the politician who founded the NHS in 1948, with his estate giving its full blessing to use his words in what is a powerful and moving number, particularly so in these difficult times:-

“Holding the hand of someone who doesn’t even know you’re there
Working for a service in a town that’s suffering
What am I supposed to do, they just treat me as they like
Cutting the ties that wrap their way around me, I just might….”

mp3: Hadda Be – Nurse’s Song

JC

Once upon a time, around three years ago, four musicians from the south coast of England came together and decided to make music under the name Foundlings.

They soon came to the attention of the good people behind Last Night From Glasgow, the not-for-profit record label founded in my home city back in 2016 (and yes, the name of the label was taken from the line in Super Trouper by Abba).

An excellent 5-track EP was released in March 2019 and the rest of the year was spent gigging and preparing new material for an album.

mp3: Foundlings – Caught Up

But then a few things happened.

The bass player decided to quit.   The band were threatened with legal action by an American outfit known as The Foundlings.  COVID put a spoke in the timetable for recording the debut album.

First things first…..the band changed their name to Hadda Be, lifted from the Allan Ginsberg poem, Hadda Be Playing On The Radio.  Then, as an opportunity emerged after the end of the first lockdown period in the UK last summer, the band raced into a studio to record a debut album in just five days.

The album, Another Life, comes out tomorrow, Friday 30 April.

One of the joys of being a patron of Last Night From Glasgow is the opportunity to receive advance copies of the music before it goes on general sale.  Another Life landed in Villain Towers just over two weeks ago, and it has been on very heavy rotation ever since.  It’s a fabulous and very tasty slice of indie-pop at its finest.  You’ll find shimmering guitars, punchy choruses, wonderful melodies and a bunch of songs that, for the most part, come and go around the three-minute mark, all of which, aside from the obligatory ballad, have the ability to get even the most reticent folk out of their chairs so that shapes can be thrown on the dance floor.

The new record has been preceded by a couple of digital singles, including the track that has given its name to the album. As it’s a new release, I don’t want to offer an mp3 for easy download, so here’s the two promos which use footage put together by the four band members in their homes – Amber, Ben, Matthew and Oliver – during the second lockdown period using green screens.

The album can be ordered from Last Night From Glasgow by clicking here.   As the label says, Another Life has that classic indie guitar sound that has been lacking for some time – part Pixies, part Primitives, part Banshees, but all Hadda Be.

Highly recommended.

JC