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Clean Cut Kid: Hiss – album review

I’m not crying. You are. Clean Cut Kid’s fourth album, Hiss tests the tear ducts but also offers hope in interesting times.

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Clean CutClean Cut Kid: Hiss

(Alcopop!)

Vinyl/CD/DL

Out Now

I’m not crying. You are. I’ve just got something in my ear. The fourth album from Liverpool’s cuddly tearjerkers, Clean Cut Kid has all the sniffle-inducing qualities of a lost dog poster, a pungent onion and an autumn mini-budget combined.

It’s the sound of an ego (in the simple psychological sense), worn paper-thin, tearing itself apart, fuelled by Mike Halls’ experiences of lockdown. When encouraged to responsibly (ironically as it turned out) play our part and stay at home, many of us rinsed box sets, went for walks and actually spoke to close family members for a change. Having made the ethical decision not to spy on Mike during the pandemic, I can’t speak for his day-to-day distractions, but Hiss embodies his overall take on lockdown: that it felt like a solid rehearsal for future loss.

If you remember Conor Oberst’s 2016 album, Ruminations, you could well use it as a barometer for what Hiss feels like. Oberst composed Ruminations in a snow-bound Omaha cabin whilst recovering from debilitating illness. When recording the tracks in a studio, he preserved that sense of powerful isolation, slowly and softly sandpapering his soul. Clean Cut Kid made Hiss in their own home studio, furnished with vintage analogue equipment. The setting clearly suits the album’s content: personal, private, introspective. Choosing Hiss as a title could as easily suit that atmospheric snap, crackle and pop that sits atop analogue recordings and lingers during musical silences, or the serpent that lurks in our consciousness and tempts us into self-destructive thoughts.

For a band who recently found a home on Alcopop! Records (Team Love in the USA) and started an exciting new chapter, there’s a lot about potential endings: losing parents, friends, partners, losing your creative muse and completely losing yourself. In track five, Inside My Head, we hear Mike question, “After I have written all the songs inside my head, will I like what I’ve become?” The hypothetical options don’t sound too appealing (“mediocre husband”, “average son”, “shitty friend”). The final image he contemplates is being a man in his fifties, on ever-shrinking stages, “Still dragging his wife along for the ride.” In the tradition of The Beatles’ When I’m Sixty-Four, the track has a bounce and a verve that deliberately clashes with its subject matter. Hit and Miss examines the possibility that songs will still emerge, but lose their appeal.

The album closes with a suite on mortality, with Louis Be Brave, Into The Tall Grass and Golden Ribbon. The final track (Golden Ribbon) takes up where the track Jean left off on their first album, Felt. It’s one of the ‘Easter Egg’ moments that the band have placed within Hiss, with elements and motifs from previous material sprinkled throughout. If you’re not sobbing and snotting after Mike’s monologue on the last song (excerpts from the eulogy of his grandad, Jimmy – Jean’s husband), then then you deserve your very own hiss – in a Christmas panto villain style.

She Takes A Pill is about anti-depressants and feels like an anti-depressant, bringing us Mike and Evelyn Halls’ ‘Kenny and Dolly’ moment. ‘Wasted Hours’ pays tribute to Mike’s favourite waste of time and best mate, his dog. Heavy As is a beautiful ‘father and son’ track in the finest Cat Stevens tradition. Finding the beauty in uncertainty, Hiss contemplates what is left when life seems empty. Its conclusion – love underlies all and love always prevails.

Clean Cut Kid online: websiteFacebookTwitterInstagram and SoundCloud.

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All words by Jon Kean. More writing by Jon on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. He tweets as @keanotherapy.

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