High Vis Blending

High Vis were formed in 2016 from the ashes of some of the UK's besthardcore bands. Gild-toothed frontman Graham Sayle's anguished lyrics aboutlife in working class Britain were familiar to fans of Tremors' full-throttle thrash,but alongside his former bandmate Edward `Ski' Harper and veterans of DirtyMoney, DiE and The Smear, High Vis sought to transform that energy andintensity into something entirely new.Like scene-mates Chubby and the Gang did by pulling in unlikely sourcematerial from classic doo-wop or Micromoon have by combining everythingfrom psychedelia and metal into their high potency mix, High Vis' 2019 debutalbum, No Sense No Feeling showed the band were never going to beconstrained by any sense of genre rules or regulations. Its claustrophobicrattle bore traces of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Crisis, The Cure and Gang Of Fourlurking in the shadows. 2020's synth-driven EP, Society Exists, was furtherevidence of the band's restless creative MO.High Vis' second album Blending sees them open their viewfinder wider thanever before. Alongside longstanding favourites such as Fugazi and Echo andThe Bunnymen; Ride and even Flock Of Seagulls were shared reference pointsas the band worked on the album together.From the anthemic sweep of opener "Talk For Hours", through the title track'spsychedelic swirl and "Fever Dream"'s baggy groove, it sees High Vis' soundblossoming into something with an unlimited richness. The hazy drift of"Shame" or the melodic jangle of "Trauma Bonds" may take them untiluncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made NoSense No Feeling so remarkable.Lyrically, the album represents another leap forward too. Talking frankly aboutpoverty, class politics, and the challenges of everyday life, Sayle's lyrics havealways addressed the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britainslipping below the waterline. This time around, Sayle's lost not of that socialconsciousness, but he's looked at himself and his own em...