Music

Hinds

Stereo, Glasgow

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Four stars

WITH a cheeky “hola Glasgow” and gleeful thanks for a sold-out show in broken English, Hinds had the Stereo crowd eating out of their hands. It was a shame that, when we tried to return the favour with a rousing chant of “viva Hinds”, our own accents made it sound as if we were saluting baked beans.

Somewhere between those scrappy early shows and the release of debut album Leave Me Alone last month, Hinds have become a formidable live proposition. With some Hot Chocolate as their entrance music, the four Spaniards – barely out of their teens – practically strut onto the stage. So it’s a surprise when they open with something from the gloom-rock end of their garage rock spectrum, all big thudding drum-beat and jagged riff.

Early single Trippy Gum properly sets the tone for the night though, with its stoner rock verses and singalong “wooh-ooh-ooh” chorus sounding like a rallying cry for the world’s coolest girl gang. Songs like Fat Calmed Kids and Bamboo follow the same winning formula: tempo shifts, surf-pop riffs and that ragged bass chug that keeps it from getting too cutesy. The effect is something slightly warped, made almost purposefully un-lovely – but presented with such exuberance it’s impossible not to fall for anyway.

Album standout Warts is pure dream-pop loveliness, like the Beach Boys played backwards through a malfunctioning amp by four teenage truants in their garage. A really quite lovely Easy provides some mid-set downtime, before a speeded-up Chili Town turns into a raucous lock-up-your-sons battle cry. By the time the spacey “gabba gabba hey” chorus of encore Davy Crockett rolls around, the whole crowd’s in their gang.