Melbourne, Australia rock band, Head Of Clay have just released their latest single, Until Tomorrow and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying listening here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
Head of Clay have been super busy over the past two years. Until Tomorrow is their seventh single.
Head Of Clay describe themselves as a kind of polished version of 90s pub rock, and we can see what they mean. Until Tomorrow has a positively anthemic and catchy chorus, the kind you might find yourself singing along to with a beer in your hand, but there’s more to Head Of Clay than pub rock. The musicianship of the members of this band is absolutely undeniable and to hear this quality in a bar would be, frankly, a travesty. Head Of Clay feel to us like a band who should be en route to some really high class venues.
Until Tomorrow has a great groove to it. With a fantastic and bright snare, the drums keep this track in line and with a real Lynyrd Skynyrd feel to the guitars and drums, this song was an instant winner for us.
The doubled guitars in many places help fill out the sound well and we also paid particular attention to the panned incidental guitar riffs that filled the sound between vocal lines.
As the song develops, a chorus of backing vocals are added and give the song a positively euphoric feel. Particular kudos to the harmonies. They’re so well placed, pitched and timed. They give that almost telepathic harmonies feel that makes us think that this band would be absolutely sublime to watch live. They sound so well rehearsed and tight.
The song rises and falls well and the dynamic soundscape of the track keeps you entertained all the time. There’s a wonderful build in the pre-chorus and the fast distant almost arpeggiated electric guitars behind the lead vocals in the middle 8 leading to the solo are well performed and understated. The guitarist gets his chance to shine in the solo, and he sure does take this opportunity! What a wonderful, well crafted solo with a great 90s feel to it. It reminded us of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1993 album – The Last Rebel.
This positively anthemic track kept us entertained right to the end. Perhaps the vocals are a little lost in the sections with heavier instrumentation, but by this point, you’re so swept along that it isn’t really an issue. From a production perspective, we’d suggest just a couple of tweaks; a small but wide cut centred around 120Hz and a small but wide boost centred around 1200Hz just to balance things out.
A note to the band to be cautious if ever mixing the track down to mono, perhaps for AM radio air play. One of the systems we listened on is mono, and we noticed a fair amount of phase cancellation which made the track sound much weaker than the fantastic strong stereo version.
Head Of Clay were a new name to us today, but on the strength of Until Tomorrow, we’ve cued up their previous tracks to go take a good listen. This is quality 90s style rock and we’re very excited for this band. We’ll be keeping our ears to the ground to see what happens next for this talented Aussie group.