Album Review: Harts - Smoke Fire Hope Desire

Harts/Prince comparisons are a dime a dozen, especially since the unfortunate demise of the latter earlier this year.

When listening to the highly polished daringness of Harts' work, it's easy to see why. With the release of Peculiar and Power before the drop of his album, Harts firmly carved himself a space in the music scene with his barely controlled shreds and soaring vocals.

Smoke Fire Hope Desire pays homage to a time gone by, a time of minimal production, lo-fi vocals and the beauty of a distortion pedal with a brass band. The record starts as a slow launch, the cleverly held back intro Smoke slowly burning along. We make our way to the big bang, All Rise, with its impressively crafted brass feature making for some damn good listening. The interlude comes in to mess up all preconceptions you've had up till this point, the seemingly improv jam session keeping the album on its toes.

The tracks bounce and roll along, with the impression of constant movement as the soul-inspired tracks like Deeper The Hole groove into your hips like an infectious disease making it impossible not to gyrate. The second interlude Wisdom slows everything down, demonstrating Harts' pure musicianship and his impeccable ear for making sounds work. Later tracks Realize and Here I Go are ballads in disguise, with painfully crafted lyrics being caressed by his old soul and his classic vocal range.

Harts has created a piece of work holding a solid promise to be sealed as a masterpiece once translated onto the live circuit.