Album review: HELLO=FIRE – self-titled

You might not know the name of Dean Fertita, but the other bands he’s in are pretty much household names (on the proviso that your household likes contemporary rock music, natch): the guy plays guitar and keys in Queens Of the Stone Age and The Raconteurs, y’see, and plays in Dead Weather. HELLO=FIRE is the name of his first true solo project (as well as the name of the debut album from the same), though it features enough guest appearances from Fertita’s bandmates (plus other luminaries, including Michael Horrigan of The Afghan Whigs, no less) that it’s hard to tell where you’d draw the line on the word “solo”.

HELLO=FIRE sounds kinda like what I expected, but somehow very different, too. For the genealogy of the sound, it might be worth bearing in mind that Fertita’s first major outing as a professional musician was in late-nineties power-popsters The Waxwings; HELLO=FIRE is much more of a pop project than a rock album, but it’s rocky pop, if that makes any sense.

The best touchstone I can think of for the sound of HELLO=FIRE is the classic sixties rock acts – but I’m thinking more Beatles and The Who than The Stones and The Velvets, here, which is unusual for me. The prime focus here is melody; every tune has a couple of simple and memorable riffs and hooks, and the lushly harmonised vocals give a psychedelic sing-along sound to the choruses. The pallet of sounds is similar, too, albeit updated with modern clarity: think “power trio plus keys” and you’re in the right neighbourhood. Take strong sparse drumming (with the cowbell left in), solid melodic bass, crunchy amped-up guitar chords, slightly spaced-out vocals; add Hammond organ, subtle deployment of flangers and phasers and some old-school plate reverb, bake for a few months, and serve. Volia!

It’s pretty decent, in other words, though HELLO=FIRE’s innately summery Beach-Boys-on-strong-drugs vibe makes it a weird choice for release in the short sharp days of early December. This deserves to be dropped in late April, as the sunlight starts to make your skin tingle and the girls stop wearing coats and jackets every day; I want to be listening to it in a friend’s car with the windows wound down, on our way to a sneaky afternoon at the beach or the funfair. HELLO=FIRE aren’t exactly carefree, but there’s a definite sense of letting the good times roll. Moments of stone age heaviosity are few and far between, however – a few blazing bluesy solos with the valves running hot, and especially the lumpy rhythmic bludgeon at the close of “Mirror Each Other” – and as such, HELLO=FIRE might be the ideal album to play to that older relative who complains that modern rock bands have forgotten how to write “decent songs”. They’ll probably still grump on about how everything was better in their day, but I bet they’ll be humming along at least a few times.

As will you.