Review: Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate – The Confidence Trick

Style: Progressive rock, Art rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull
Review by: Doug
Country: UK
Release date: 15 July, 2022

Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate are a London-based three-piece progressive rock group featuring a unique blend of modern and classic prog rock styles. The overall sound of The Confidence Trick will likely strike listeners as most similar to Genesis, or perhaps Yes, with a healthy dose of Jethro Tull due mostly to the resident flutist’s presence. Mixed throughout, however, are traces of more modern rock sensibilities: the music grooves in a way you don’t often hear from the ‘70s proggers, and the vocal delivery at times sounds like rap with the other instruments providing the backing track. On the whole, this style doesn’t “wow” me – I’m a little lukewarm on Genesis and their ilk to begin with – but The Confidence Trick feels fresh and produces some instrumental moments that are definitely worth a listen.

My impressions of The Confidence Trick very quickly diverged between how much I enjoyed the instrumental parts and how much I enjoyed the vocals. Instrumentally, the album echoes the psychedelic and keyboard-heavy proto-progressive soundscapes of Genesis and sometimes Pink Floyd but with more modern sensibilities, adding energy and motion to the bass line which helps to keep the music active and engaging even when the volume is low and the tempo is slow. The musical tone is a bit silly, but just the right amount to keep the listener on their toes and anticipating the next strange phrase.

On the vocal side, though, I am less impressed. Singer Malcolm Galloway’s voice calls to mind Peter Gabriel in his Genesis days (most especially from Foxtrot) with a very similar casual, almost spoken-word style – although Galloway’s is less nasal and pinched. Also like Gabriel, however, his vocal melodies mostly include just a handful of different notes in each tune. His singing produces no real harmony nor does it follow much in the way of chords; it simply lies on top of the backing instrumentals, two separate parts assembled as if by chance. In places (such as “World War Terminus” and “All Empires Fall”) this has been leveraged to create a sort of rap, removing essentially all melody from the vocals and instead leaning on rhythm and lyrical content as material for the listener’s ear. These parts are at least novel and interesting, but all throughout the album I find the vocals too flat of a counterpart to the dynamic and creative instrumental work beneath.

The contrast between instrumental and vocal parts is most noticeable in certain songs (“Silence Is a Statement,” “Back Where I Started,” “The Confidence Trick”), but the rest of the tracks actually provide quite a bit of variety. My personal favorite is “Refuge,” a 10-minute instrumental composition that showcases excellent songwriting and creates an immersive cinematic experience for the listener. Others such as “Back Where I Started” and “End of the Line” star Kathryn Thomas with some brilliant flute solos, while “Perky Pat” and “Interlude” let the synths have their time to show off as the main melody carrier.

Unfortunately, the more the vocal part comes into focus, the more lacking it seems. Both “World War Terminus” and “Another Plague” try to construct stories within their lyrics and therefore place full focus on the vocals, the instrumental part reduced to a basic backing track. The lyrics, despite a middling word count and runtime, seem to get lost in high-concept worldbuilding and fail to deliver much that’s compelling or meaningful – “Refuge” has a better emotional arc despite being lyric-free. Meanwhile, stripping down the instrumentals deprives these songs of what substance can be found in the rest of the album, leaving the listening experience lackluster. Later in the album “All Empires Fall” does a decent job of implementing this vocal style; by embracing the rap delivery more fully and focusing the lyrics more on core lyrical themes instead of high-concept rambling, this song at least provides a memorable experience of its own. I’m still not a big fan of this musical execution, but I think it shows a better example of what the band would have liked to achieve with their other vocal parts.

Although The Confidence Trick is adequate, Hats Off Gentlemen have not played to their instrumental and compositional strengths with this release. The instrumental work is fresh and lively and successfully blends classic styles with new, plus who doesn’t like a little flute? However, too much of the album de-emphasizes the instrumental parts, relegating them to backing track status behind musically bland vocals that don’t contribute much to the melody or harmony. I do recommend you listen to some of the instrumental features, though; I think you’ll find it refreshing.

Recommended tracks: End of the Line, Perky Pat, Refuge, Interlude
You may also like: Evership, Syd Arthur, Last Flight To Pluto
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook
Label: Glass Castle Recordings – Twitter

Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate is:
– Malcolm Galloway (vocals, lead guitar, keyboards)
– Mark Gatland (bass, guitars, keyboards, backing vocals)
– Kathryn Thomas (flute, backing vocals)