Greg Weeks The Hive (Fact Magazine Online)

BUZZZZ

Greg Weeks seems to have built up a reputation of nurturing a doomy gloomy attitude, a folky grim reaper some might say; but when you’ve spent most of your past time listening to black metal and Sunn0))), disregard subject matter on the album and base your review purely on abundance of melody and instrumentals, Weeks is a great big ball of fun and optimism. In reality ‘The Hive’ doesn’t fall short on providing morbid and bleak tracks. The bespectacled founding member of psych folk band Espers, new solo album has moments in which it is hard to put an era or period to it. Mixing the occult, acoustic beauty with digital elements to create an amalgamation of tracks that are part mediaeval England, part 70’s trad rock/ folk and part Sergio Leone western; ‘You Won’t Be The Same Ever Again’ sounds like a death toll akin to Ennio Morricone. Particularly anachronistic however is Week’s cover of Madonna’s Borderline which is translated into a haunting ballad, I still can’t quite work out if the ditty is tongue in cheek or homage to her Madgejesty. Either way it’s probably the Weekest (aha) track on the album. His voice sounds somewhat out of place on the record, simple monotonous stream of lyrics are revived with Flutes, ocarinas, all manner of quirky instruments and tools; but there is a Clarity in the vocals and harmonies lending itself beautifully to the drone and feedback that creates the ethereal sound Weeks manages to achieve on certain tracks. A hive of maudlin, psychedelic lullabies that will leave you tossing and turning throughout the night.