Desert Hearts – 'Hotsy Totsy Nagasaki' (Gargleblast/No Dancing) Released 30/10/06

If the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder were really true, Desert Hearts should be expecting a huge love-in sometime about now. Sad to say, that whole idea probably depends on people knowing who you are before you disappear over the horizon. And despite the acclaim rightly bestowed on their 2002 debut, ‘Let’s Get Worse’, Desert Hearts, so far, have gathered up only a fraction of the audience they deserve.

But supposing you did have the good fortune to come across Belfast’s finest a few years ago – kudos if you really did – what is it that you’d be pining for? The short answer is classic guitar-driven indie with intelligence and heart to spare and a fair understanding of a great pop hook.

Four years on, ‘Let’s Get Worse’ is still worthy of praise, but ‘Hotsy Totsy Nagasaki’ comfortably betters it. Charley Mooney’s songwriting is more assured, both lyrically and musically; the band’s arrangements are more varied. This time out they add strings, horns and even a choir to the guitar-bass-drums trio. Despite the careful decoration, even the foundations are glorious: at times Roisin Stewart’s bass playing (meaty chords a speciality) comes close to stealing the show. With so much of interest going on that’s no mean feat.

Opening tracks ‘D Moon Pilot’ and ‘Sea Punk’ gently pull you in, foreshadowing only a little of what’s to come while gradually building interest and intensity. ‘Gravitas’ drops right back, but eventually unleashes a furious and tortured crescendo. Appropriately enough – the narrator clearly has his demons (“would it melt your head/ if I was to tell you/ that by thirty I’d be dead?”). From there ‘Central Line’ races away like an express train, perhaps overestimating the speeds likely to be achieved on the London Underground. Sung again in the first person, the lyrics (“the blood-packed central line/ it came back again/ to stir up my mind/ … I’m gonna make my way to you/ to die”) make it difficult not to think of the 7/7 attacks but could easily be a continuation of ‘Gravitas’. We never quite learn whether the protagonist is simply suicidal or has murder on his mind as well, but it’s a chilling piece of writing nonetheless.