Darren Hayman follows this month’s tour with David Gedge (The Wedding Present) by revisiting The French, his post-Hefner Electronic band with fellow Hefner alumni John Morrison, by releasing the ‘TV Themes’ EP. Like Hefner before them, The French became popular with John Peel, and they recorded their first session for him in 2003, as well as having two songs appear in that year’s Festive Fifty.

This EP consists of four reimagined television themes from their childhoods, originally put together as an experimental Maida Vale session for Peel. Airing on BBC Radio 1 in July 2004, just a few months before the legendary DJ’s passing, this oddity would become Hayman’s final Peel session.

The French were short-lived, issuing just one album (Local Information), which received a five star review in The Guardian, was called a “Buried Treasure” by Electronic Sound Magazine as well as a “Hidden Gem” by Mojo Magazine, in addition to one of its songs ('The Wu Tang Clan') finding new life when covered by Allo Darlin’. The album also triggered a lengthy legal issue with the label, Too Pure, and “torpedoed” Hayman’s career, as he puts it, and remains one of his favourite works of his career.

‘TV Themes’ will be streamable on all platforms, in addition to being included in his imminently-launched Bandcamp Subscription aka “Darren Hayman’s Never-Ending Singles Club.”

Darren says “I am most proud of the many sessions I recorded for John Peel with my two bands, Hefner and The French. When Hefner became a "Peel band" and recorded their first session, I felt that a true life goal had been achieved. Many bands, much more revered and successful than myself, would have wished they’d recorded a Peel session. I could die a little happier.

At one point, Hefner, with no album to promote, asked John if we could record a session of Gospel songs for him. He loved both the idea and result, saying that this was what he had always wanted the Peel sessions to be: an opportunity for artists to experiment and stretch out at the BBC’s expense. After Hefner, John Morrison and I formed The French. After our first Peel session in 2003, we decided to repeat our Hefner Gospel idea and asked John if we could record four television themes for his show. Recorded at the end of July 2004, it turned out to be our last session for John, shortly before his death in October.

The TV themes are the ones that sat on the very edge of our memories, barely recalled shows from our childhoods, ones that might only resonate with you if you are the same age as us. “Crockett’s Theme” and “Hill Street Blues” reflected our interest in beautifully written tunes, and both were complicated to work out and reconstruct. Mike Post’s “Hill Street Blues” theme is a proper piece of complex arrangement that really stretched us. Crockett’s Theme is the only bona fide hit out of these tunes and allowed me to play the beautiful monophonic lead line on my synth and pretend I was in Kraftwerk. “Big John, Little John” was an early TV version of the film "Big" but had creepy overtones with the shapeshifting child/man having a wife. “Maybe Tomorrow (The Theme From the Littlest Hobo)” also lives in the dimmest corner of my brain; I remember nothing about it except that it’s about a dog and this was the theme.

Listening to these versions now, I am impressed by how odd and wonky they sound. I put this spirit of experimentation down to John Peel’s influence: we wanted to impress and surprise him. What you have here isn’t the Peel session itself; it’s the same backing tracks we brought in to Maida Vale 4, but in a rare moment of foresight from us, we re-recorded the vocals and lead lines.”

Occult Master is the latest release from Finland’s most prolific indie metal label, Inverse Records. It’s a self-titled debut album from an Oulu-based trio who deal in traditional heavy metal.

This first thing that’s noticeable is the title of the opening track, ‘Just Another Nail in the Failier's Coffin’; we thought we had learned a new word for an archaic artisan but unfortunately, it’s simply a misspelling of “failure”.  We’re not going to hold that against them though. For starters, they’re performing in their second language and also, The Smiths’ ‘Cemetry Gates’ is regarded as one of their masterpieces despite the poorly rendered title.

The album was recorded as-live with some overdubs, and is all the better for the warts-and-all production, or lack of production, if you prefer. It’s obvious from the first notes that Occult Master are heavily influenced by the metal of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It’s like listening to an unearthed recording from the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) that brought the punk template into the hard rock world. Fortunately, the sound is much better than many of those records. All the instruments are clear as a bell, and the guitars are satisfyingly chunky and crunchy.

Nowhere is the NWOBHM influence more notable than on ‘Heavy Metal Madness’; a proper old school celebration of the communion of the mosh pit. This is well-worn ground and Occult Master make no effort to reinvent the steel. They are indebted to Metallica and not far away from the sound of Slough Feg, in both their riffing style and vocal/lyric delivery.

It’s a style that has been sent up by Spinal Tap and Tenacious D and is most reminiscent of Canadian metallers, Anvil. Best known for the documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, they are a band who faced, and continue to face, ridicule for their unreconstructed, unironic take on heavy metal that lacks self-awareness, when they should be appreciated at face value as an unreconstructed, unironic heavy metal band that lacks self-awareness.

So it is with Occult Masters. There’s something here for metal fans of every stripe, and it’s an unapologetically old-school, spiked leather, fist raised, glorious romp. Bang the head that does not bang \m/

Track list:

1.  Just Another Nail in the Failier's Coffin 
2.  Island of Leper
3.  Heavy Metal Madness
4.  Lucifer's Henchman
5.  Ground of the Damned
6.  Who Is Our Enemy
7.  Sorry Soul
8.  Soothing Swamp
9.  Gnarly Geezer