Bands come and go all the time. Sometimes it's the bloody awful ones who inexplicably survive like Kevlar-coated super cockroaches while no one admits to actually buying their flipping records. On the other side of the coin, it's often those with the most promise whose flame burns briefly but brightly, I won't pick an example, we all have a least one that will spring to mind. Newcastle's Hug were one such group, their small run of releases in the early 90s gained praise from the usual indie suspects; Mark Radcliffe, NME, Melody Maker... but they split in 1994 after just one album. The initial plan was perhaps just a trip down memory lane, and so they plotted a gig for 2011, and in the process went over some unreleased demos. Although not great in terms of sound quality, the band realised that these tapes included some excellent unreleased material, so they set about recording them properly.
'Clay' is the end result of those sessions. Five recordings from the recent live shows are included (the band are now mothballed once again) and show there's still a spark there, proving the brief swansong was worth the effort. It's the trio of 'new' studio songs that are the focus though. 'Clay' is classic indie-rock that would have sounded the same had it been recorded in the 90s; they make no attempt to update/destroy their original sound, and you wonder how much further their career may have gone had they stuck it out. This was the same time that similar sounding bands such as Salad were making chart headway. 'Kingdom Come' (if you swapped vocalists) wouldn't be far away from 4AD bands such as Belly; they were right, these demos did include some great lost songs. The last studio track is 'This Dark Eden' which also sounds like a period piece (which is really what it is) but the guitar is irresistible to anyone lucky enough to have lived through that whole scene. This fleeting reminder has ensured, to the indie world at least, that they might be gone but they're not forgotten.
Hug's website
Buy the EP
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