Today, Hybrid Kid release their latest single, Change Your Mind. We were fortunate enough to get a pre-listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio.
What an exciting and captivating song we have in our ears. With a clear, well played and well recorded guitar being the driving force behind this song, we were excited to hear it develop, and it does not disappoint.
The acoustic guitar playing was spectacular and frantic. We’re not quite sure how he kept that up for almost 4 minutes. Really classy and intricate work. Well played!
The song progresses by adding in some vocals and some lovely swells on the cymbals before the full band sound comes in. Even at this point, the acoustic guitar is still the main feature.
The drums sit and keep time, but the focus as far as instrumentation is concerned is the guitar.
With some gentle backing harmonies the overall feel of the song is just a little sinister. It really keeps you on your toes and forces you to listen.
There’s some gorgeous and expertly played bass riffs in Change Your Mind and the drums sound superb. They’ve been well recorded and well played with just the right amount of room reverb on them.
The overall feel of the track set us in mind of Fish’s album, Marbles. There’s something about a few qualities in the lead vocals, as well as the instrumentation and style of playing.
With a unique, just drums, ending, this song is a really exciting, experimental indie rock gem. The quality of performance and musicianship, together with the way all the instruments gel well together makes us think that this is a supremely well rehearsed outfit who have really got themselves together with a quality signature sound.
For our own personal taste, we’d suggest a large shelf boost in the top two octaves to bring them in line and to bring out the sizzle and lovely 16 beat feel on the percussion a little more. We’d also just notch out around 150-170Hz to counter a resonating frequency we spotted in the bass track.
We’re excited to hear what Hybrid Kid do next. This is exciting, frenetic, skillful and intelligent musicianship.