Anyone who has been described as if Felt had signed to 4ad is going to get me to stand up and take notice. Easy to please eh? Anyway that's what has been said about the Californian based Hope Chest so I thought I had better check them out.The band, who may have possibly been named after a 10,000 Maniacs album, have been around for years according to their biography and their first line-up was formed in 1992. They have released a number of cassettes and CD's including the My Huckleberry Friend 7" released in 2004. They hope to have a new album released later this year.
There are four songs available on their My Space page culled from various releases including, I presume, from, the forthcoming release. Three comes from 1993's A Sentimental EP and the music sounds very much in a Lush like vein. Of course the male vocals sound nothing like Miki Berenyi's!!! October comes from Ecstasy on Main Street which is not listed on the bands biography and has a much more mature sound. The other two tracks come from the album due for release this year - i'm presuming here. Killjoy is a gentler affair and it still has that Lush like guitar sound. Sadly I could not get the other track to play despite my best endeavours. Still there is enough here to warrant investigating.
My Space is up the creek at the moment (and has been for a couple of days now) so I cannot download anything or link directly to the files. You will need to stream them from here. There are tracks available for downloading from Soundclick but you need a free account before downloading.
You can also listen to the band's cover of New Order's 1963 here.
EDIT: I have collected the two soundclick tracks plus a wma of 1963 and have uploaded them to yousendit.com.
Killjoy is originally a song by Brighter who where on the legendary Sarah Record label. Hope Chests version sounds almost authentic to the original, but I don´t mind, because its such a tremendous song.
Furthermore Brighters singels are re-released on Matinée recodings and Killjoy is available on matcd026. www.indiepages.com/matinée
Keris Howard of Brighter is now releasing heartbreaking music in the band Harper Lee (also on Matinée)
Listen and enjoy!
/Andreas
I never was a fan of Brighter although I have some stuff of theirs. Thanks for that.