Album Review: Heroes In Hiding: Curtains

Joe Carroll might not have been around to help Heroes in Hiding record their debut LP if it hadn’t been for his miraculous survival and recovery after falling out of a moving coach in the middle of a motorway last year. Then again, if that experience had never happened, we might not have been gifted with Curtains’ lead song, ‘Hospital’. Fashioned from his experiences in hospital, Joe found the song’s beat from a two-tone piece of medical machinery and set about making this joyous ode to pain and recovery.

The LP could be carried on the weight of ‘Hospital’ alone, but in the space of six songs, Heroes in Hiding prove their mettle. The aomospheric ‘Trouble’ layers seductive grooves over big drumbeats and cymbal-crashes. The haunting baritone – which repeats the lines “I don’t like what I’m becoming” during the song’s denouement – is worthy of The National’s frontman Matt Berninger.

The tracks which follow – ‘Beer’ and ‘The Riddle’ – continue in the vein of starting from unassuming beginnings and building to a climactic finale: this is a band with the confidence and verve to pull big alt-rock numbers out of the bag. Final track ‘Talk Shit’ is quite literally full of life – actual conversations play in the background – and its crescendo ensures the album finishes on a high. With six songs, you feel like you’ve barely scratched the surface, and that could ultimately be the biggest drawback – the album is not the fleshed-out, no holds barred thing it should rightfully be.

Then again, if this is what the Dublin boys can do with six songs, we’re excited for what comes next... Pay attention to the men behind the Curtains.