Despite being a fan of The High Strung for most of their two decade existence, I had no idea that HannaH existed. Never short of melody and originality, the return of Mark Owen in 2016 and the last album in 2019, Quiet Riots, reinforced that message. It is an absolute gem of an album.
HannaH, however goes back to 2002, before the sessions for the band's debut album, These Are The Good Times. Whilst waiting to go into the studio for those sessions, The High Strung found themselves with 2 weeks free and decided to use the time to record songs to a Teac 80-8 Reel To Reel.
The debut album sessions began and no more was thought of these recordings, until the lockdown. Bass Player, Chad Stocker discovered the tapes and drew them to the attention of the rest of the band and all agreed there was something special about the recordings.
The band have always been prolific recorders for no other reason than fun and when the tapes were passed to Producer Zach Shipps, all agreed that the end results of his work made a valid release. So we have the official release, 19 years on.
When something like this is generally mentioned, you expect scrappy lo fi outtakes with the odd gem amongst the mediocre. That is certainly not the case here. The recordings were approached differently to the upcoming sessions. There was no pressure and the band recorded them for themselves.
The result is a really inventive album. Not necessarily as commercial as what was to come, but the trademark melody and wit are combined with real Indie inventiveness. It isn't a long album, 26 minutes, but the 10 songs offer such variety.
Turned It Away is UK Beat that really wants to be Psych and Cored Out Apple is great Noise Pop. Tip Of The Iceberg enters into the territory of The Sugarplastic, yet Beautiful Summer is splendid Psych Pop. That Is All I Want From You could be Merseybeat.
God Is Good is slashing Garage Pop, but the real gem is Whatever He Wanted, featured on the current IDHAS 10 Song Mix. It is a wonderful slice of Toytown Psych. I respectively suggest that you treat HannaH as a new release. It is exceptional. The fact it was thrown down underlines what a great band The High Strung are. Highly Recommended!
You can listen to and buy the album here. You can find out more about The High Strung here.
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