Albums

Greg Weeks - The Hive

Joe Clark 01/12/2008

Rating: 2.5/5

Shorn of his Espers bandmates for this solo opus, Greg delivers a treatise on the apocalyptic state of the environment that is not for the faint hearted. Less in thrall to Pentangle, Incredible String Band et al. than his band work, this is sinister stuff.

Inspired by his newly acquired mellotron the drones are slow, coupled with strummed and picked acoustic, the occasional viola and recorder. At times you can't help but yearn for something a little less grim, and it occasionally appears in the form of the relatively jaunty 'Lay Low' or the gentle 'Funhouse'.

His cover of Madonna's 'Borderline' sums up the album's aura nicely - slowing it right down to a funeral march it turns into a study of a stalker's obsession in a similar way to Sonic Youth's version of The Carpenter's 'Superstar'. A journey into the dark side of the folk.