Album Review: Hot Coppers’ self titled album is a pastoral indie pop masterpiece.

Melbourne-based band Hot Coppers has just released their new self-titled album and it is a whimsical joy. Tripping along with a pastoral pop bounce and burnished with intelligent, wry lyrics, this has all the hallmarks of something from some bucolic English village with a touch of The Kinks or Jona Lewie and a dash of sparkling eccentricity and gentle self-deprecating humour.

The delivery also dials in the gentleness and pop sensibilities of the Dunedin/Flying Nun sound as exemplified by The Chills. Each song floats with an ambulant liquidity on a bed of strumming guitars and subtle synths.

Hot Coppers is the solo studio project of music producer Gareth Parton (Foals, The Go! Team, The Breeders) with a live band that features luminaries from The Lucksmiths, Mid-State Orange, Monnone Alone, The Zebras, Amarillo and Clan Analogue. Parton has been on a twenty year hiatus and sprang back into recording during the COVID lockdowns. And the result is an absolute joy.

Opening track ‘Dirty Water’ sets the scene – a Kinks type pop delivery with dappling instrumentation, wry vocals and witty, whimsical lyrics. ‘Bedfellow’ has an up tempo waltz and glorious harmonies while ‘Molecule froths and bubble with a high stepping lilt. In contrast, ‘Clown In My Pocket’ is filled with a sort of aching pathos and a soft delivery and ‘So and So’ built on achingly funny lyrics.

‘Sunflower Seeds’, an earlier single, is subtle and filled with indelible melodies and glorious harmonies. Parton says that track:

…attempts to capture the excitement and unknown of a new relationship – will it grow into something special… or die cos you’re shit at ‘gardening’?

‘Running Mate’ has a gentle and eloquent frailty – a pastoral, bucolic sound fringed by piano with gentle, wry wordplay weaving through the vocals. The chorus is as expansive as the southern skies with an euphoric, pulse-quickening glow. Parton says of the track:

…around the time I was writing this one, I did one of those pseudo-scientific personality tests and it said I was a “Campaigner” – no idea what that means but it got me on the campaign trail.

This album is a melodic masterpiece – a blend of pastoral eccentricity with the village green archness of XTC and the pop mastery of Britpop era indie rock, all wrapped up in a dream pop cloak threaded with a warm, melancholic intelligence.

‘Hot Coppers’ is out now through Lost and Lonesome Recording Company and available to download and stream here and through the link above.

Hot Coppers will be launching the album on Saturday, July 22 2023 at the Fitzroy Pinnacle in Melbourne – details and tickets available here.

The album was recorded entirely by ex-pat Welshman Parton at his Melbourne studio Los Bomberos, having rediscovered his flair for songwriting during the pandemic, following a brief twenty-odd-year hiatus.

It’s worth catching up with Parton’s podcast SixPack too – details here – where his musical connections lead to some very impressive guests.