We met up with Leeds’ Heart-Ships at Blue Daisy Cafe ahead of their show at The Castle Hotel  to film this awesome stripped back version of their track ‘Spray Paint’.

 

NME:
They’re being hailed as ‘the new Wild Beasts’ by their Leeds fanbase, but there’s alot more to the six-piece than that. Anthemic melodies mix with beer-boy folk, with dashes of cello and beguiling lyrics thrown in.

GODISINTHETV:
Wild Beasts, Modest Mouse and Neutral Milk Hotel – the influences may be there in the middle distance, but their twisted pop sound is fiercly eccentric… Mumford and Sons may have defined the sensitive communal singalong for some in the last few years, but with their emotional juxtaposition of sensivity and brutality: Heart-Ships are casting forth to somewhere special we hope in 2012 we’re around to bare witness to it…

DROWNED IN SOUND:
Stumbling upon rugged-of-vocal male collective Heart-Ships in an impossibly small upstairs bar room during Live At Leeds annual venue-a-thon this May, it was easy to become allured by the raw, earnest delivery of their songs. Possessing tracks that bore a passing resemblance to folk, the young group couldn’t resist the urge to keep reaching for something more elaborate; in a funny way it reminded me of the wide-eyed doggedness of first album Hope Of The States, at others it felt only a couple of notches below Shearwater’s graceful ascents and plummets. Either way it had bags of potential …. Reminiscent of both Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade … sure to go down well.

BBC INTRODUCING:
“Absolutely Brilliant”

DROWNED IN SOUND Leeds Festival Review:
This Leeds-based six-piece fought their way onto the 2011 Leeds bill via the gamut of those most ghastly of challenges, the battle of the band contest. They must’ve made an absolute mockery of the competition there though because on this early slot at the BBC Introducing Stage they’re blowing pretty much everything else we’ve overheard on here this weekend away. Possessing collectively gruff vocals that seem to build from the pit of the stomach, roaring forth during their songs rabble rousing crescendos, this is a group who juxtapose a stiff masculinity with a heart-laid-open sort of emotional honesty. You can probably point to Wild Beasts to see where they’re getting some of their sound from, bouncing bass lines providing a rhythmic escape for any overwhelmed by their heavy sincerity. In truth however Heart-Ships are a little rougher than their geographic peers, and as new bands go, they’re among the best to have trained themselves on these susceptible ears. By Simon Jay Catling