I know, I meant to do this earlier – but real life gets in the way of my love affair with all things begat by Darkness.  However, I have a few spare minutes before setting off to see the very first Hot Leg gig tonight, so it seems appropriate to do this now.

Anyway. Let’s start with ‘Heroes’. A free non-album track offered when the tour tickets went on sale – I first heard a small 12 second snippet of this ages ago on dothegreenthing, and the damn thing managed to stick in my head even with such a short burst.  So when the full version arrived, it was boogie time – i defy you not to jig about to it. Hand jive is good…   Every part of this sinks into your consciousness – guitars, beat, chorus, backing vocals. There’s nowhere to hide.   And who could resist a Superhero wiping the floor with Zeroes left right and centre? Doesn’t matter if you’re EcoBoy or the boy next door. Everybody’s heart drives them on to a dream, everyone has their own future in their hands. It’s not easy, but you don’t have to  do it on your own.  Not nearly as much falsetto as people would expect from Justin, here. Sounding good – fast, confident, and not a syllable of superfluous lyric.

Moving on to ‘Trojan Guitar’, which arrived whilst I was on holiday and then wouldn’t play for days thanks to the laptop sulking. Still, I got to wonder about the title, and the idea of Justin and his merry men sneaking back into musicland and destroying it from the inside with the sweet blasts of rock. This is an epic, a saga and work of guitar/lyric art. It’s for you decide what the story is, but for me it’s the rise and fall of TD, and Justin’s subsequent rise from the ashes. Apologies all round if that’s not the case. More progressive rock than anything that goes before it, and the beginning reminded me of ABBA’s ‘Fernando’. Never a bad thing.  As I said, the guitar work on this is just amazing. Listen a couple of times, it’s well worth it.  ‘Trojan Guitar’ is the first single, watch out for release dates.  

Talent will out, as they say. You can’t miss it here – it was never lost, just took stock of itself for a while.