The Early Hours second album, Evolution, is a more refined and polished record than their debut
, with more prominence given to the lead and backing vocals. However, the album still manages
to retain a live and garagey feel thanks to the simple recording and production. Songs like
She's Where It's At, I Wonder If You'll Ever Be Mine, Christianne and an infectious
re-recording of The Girl I Haven't Met are all the sixties inspired pop songs that the Early
Hours are renowned for. Elsewhere, Step Back In Time, Hard Feelings and Adult Attraction have
a darker, more garage punk sound while Happening Kid Today and Soon Be Back have an upbeat,
rocking beat. The highlight of the album though is the heartbreaking, Lonely With You.
Clocking in at exactly 30 minutes, The Early Hours prove with Evolution that when it comes to
pop and beat music, quite often less is indeed more.(tripod.com)After the quite calm power pop sounds of today here comes something for your dancin' shoes. Garage power pop at its best.
Bio
The Early Hours began in January 1995 when brothers Kirk and Chet Pohl decided to join forces with school friends Matt Davis and Sean Carthew and form a garage band with the express purposes of writing and recording their favourite style of 60’s influenced pop. The band never intended to perform live and in fact recorded their first album with Tom Thorpe at Bonsai Studio’s before they had ever played a gig together. They were influenced by The Sunnyboys, The Hoodoo Guru’s, Redd Kross, The Stems, The Plimsouls, and The Barracudas.
After pressing 500 copies of their self titled debut album, the band decided that gigging was necessary in order to sell and promote their music. Kirk and Chet were working in the mines in Kalgoorlie Western Australia while Sean and Matt were studying and living in Perth some 350 miles away. The band began alternating gigs between Perth and Kalgoorlie and rehearsing whenever Kirk and Chet could make it to Perth.
The band sent some copies of their album to Spinning Top Records who solicited the album
to their contacts in Europe. After a good response from many pop labels in that region of
the world, a deal was struck with the Berlin label ‘Twang’ who released the
album on vinyl as The Early Hours Greatest Hits Volume 1. This limited release has become a sought after collectable through out the world and is actually selling second hand at a higher market driven price than it was new.
Just prior to signing the deal with Twang, The Early Hours were unearthed in Kalgoorlie by Radio Station Triple J. This lead the band to some high rotation airplay and a much higher profile in Perth and the east coast. All of a sudden they had gig offers coming in from everywhere but Twang had invited them to tour Europe so they set their sights in that direction rather than the east coast.
The Early Hours set out to play 16 shows in Spain, Germany and France but this snowballed to 31 when they arrived. Gigs varied from playing to 800 people with The Bluetones at the loft in Berlin, (where signatures from Nirvana, the Hoodoo Guru’s, Pearl Jam and Lenny Kravitz were seen back stage), to an underground club in Spain called Kristall, with no PA one power point and a crowd of 20, in a room no bigger than the average Australian lounge room.
After returning from Europe the band was extremely tight, but emotionally and financially drained. They took about two weeks off to ponder did they want to keep playing. The chance of a You Am I support came up and after that gig moral was high and supports for The Hoodoo Guru’s, Powderfinger, and The Stems reunion show followed. By this time the band had recorded a new album again with Tom Thorpe and began taking to Phantom Music about the possibilities of releasing and developing the band. The Early Hours are now signed to Phantom Music and released their second full length CD, tilted 'Evolution', on the West Australian sub label Rocket, and a vinyl version on Melbourne’s Corduroy label. They head back to Europe in October 1998 with over 40 gigs confirmed, a limited edition double vinyl release in France and a strong following in the region. The band is also beginning to establish a strong following on the East coast of Australia and have toured there twice.
So far, so good. And now...put on your dancin' shoes
Cheers
Frank
link
p.s.: it's mp3 320
