VINYL OBSCURITY OF THE MONTH

 

 

THE CHEATING HEARTS

SELF TITLED (2006)

This was one of those records you pick up on the way; it looks interesting, and it satiates the need for the vinyl junkie to get a fix. I got it a market stall for a pretty reasonable price, which always adds to the appeal.

I had absolutely no inkling what the band or record was like – apart from the dealer’s note on the price sticker; “red wax  - ltd 200 copies - crushing garage”. Enough to prompt me to shell out.   I also had no idea when it was released, since he was carrying quite a few copies, and it was new. I assumed it was a new (ish) release. Turns out it was released circa 2006, so I’m way behind the times with this one. No matter. I get ‘em when I get ‘em. Other than that, I was only able to surmise it was released by an Italian label.

I also guessed it was perhaps another garage duo thing going by the cover which has a picture of a couple on the front - the girl is holding the guy’s heart she’s ripped out , and may or may not be going to have a bite. Turns out it’s actually a French  band, and there’s three of ‘em,  two guitars, and drums.

The first song “Miss Bad News”  took me by a bit by surprise, with its plodding riff and distorted vocals; I had to play around with the speeds and at first I thought it was supposed to be a 45RPM. Once I got my head around that and put it back to 33 and gave it another go, I realised it sounded not half bad, and once it got into the next song, it got a bit more momentum and kind of went from second gear into fourth and kept going.  There’s a pretty good garage-punk thing going on throughout here, and it rocks pretty fricken good. It’s mainly sung in  English (though the vocals are distorted, which actually works ok)

 Out of the first side, the pick is probably”Guess I’m fallin’ in love”.  Side one closes with the quieter, melancholy  “Semblant de Rien”.

It’s back into gear on side two with “My baby she’s a Heart Attack”, and again the pace keeps going,   closing with a raucous live cut, ”I won’t crack”

Package wise this is pretty good; simple and effective.  I like the red and white cover, and matching red vinyl. There’s a nice little insert with some pics and flyers etc on one side. There’s a blurb from the band on the other side. Here’s an excerpt ; “ We wanted to be the Heartbreakers so bad at one point, I think we believed we were” . There’s multiple references to drugs and a couple of garage acts.  The production details, credits etc are written in French so I couldn’t decipher that, except that it was recorded in 2003. The production on this record works pretty well I reckon, the two guitars play off each other, and get a left and right channel each, so the stereo separation is great (one guitar on one speaker, one on the other). The drums are also up enough on the mix that they’re audible enough to drive everything along. The vinyl gets a great, full, warm sound and vinyl is probably the best way to hear this kind of stuff.

Apparently there are many related bands to the Cheating Hearts, and this was one of the more obscure bands of ringleader and garage troubadour Choyce. 

Garage rock doesn’t always tick the boxes for me, but when it works, it works, and this has become a bit of a staple on the playlist since I got it a while ago. I have no idea if or what kind of CD distribution this had, this record is one of 200, and as I said it sounds great on vinyl but  once again, you can download it if you want to.