A GUEST SERIES

38. Regeneration – INHEAVEN (2015 Cult Records)

Released August 2015 (Did not Chart, although I can’t confirm this)

Imagine this – you are in a band (called something cool like The Edith Piafs or something). You are from somewhere that is a bit edgy but a bit arty as well in South East London and you have just played a breathlessly brilliant gig at a local venue.

The next day a review appear of that gig written by some coked up music industry spaffer who refers to your band as ‘Indie’s Next Big Thing’. By the end of the day, your grainy self-recorded You Tube video of your band live at the Crappers Arms has had three million views and you are chased out of your local Wilkinsons Store by hordes of screaming fans, all wanting to just ‘stare at you’.

That, is pretty much, what happened to INHEAVEN, I mean I’ve embellished bits of it (ok, most of it, the South East London bit is right) but in 2014 this band were hyped beyond belief by certain elements of the music industry. By 2017 on the eve of the release of their debut album, a drooling NME journalist declared the album as “indie rocks, most dangerously exciting debut…” which doesn’t even make sense, how can a debut album be ‘dangerously exciting…’ It’s not a roller coaster with no seatbelts it’s a 36 minute long collection of musical tracks.

Usually the hyping of a band makes most sensible music fans run a mile.

However, INHEAVEN had something intriguing. Maybe it was the fact that they insisted on having their name spelt IN CAPITALS. Maybe it was the fact that Julian Casablancas the drainpipe jeans wearing frontman of still just about cool, The Strokes, declared them “the most exciting band in the UK” and immediately signed them for his own record company (that would be Cult Records). Maybe it is the fact that the noise that they make is utterly infectious.

Actually it is the last one. They make a bloody fantastic racket. Or rather they did. Their debut album failed to set the world alight despite its ‘critical acclaim’ and in 2018 they called it a day.

‘Regeneration’ was the bands debut single and it was released in the summer of 2015 and its excellent, a guitar shredding ear splitting onslaught of feedback and shouty vocals all about “just wanting to fuck around”.. It’s a glorious mess.

The B Side is pretty decent as well

Slow

SWC