Not sure how I missed this Adam Hattaway And The Haunters album “All Dat Love” when it was first released on Melted Ice Cream just before Christmas (although that timing may be why). Anyway, turns out this album is a stone cold classic of restless guitar-fuelled pop and rock and soul, as “Turn Around” shows.
The album travels through many moods without straying far from its twin squalling guitar approach. There are so many beautiful songs here and so much thrillingly noisy guitar playing it’s hard to pick just one song as a kind of representative entry point.
“Turn Around” features Adam Hattaway on Vocals and guitars, Emma
Hattaway on bass Elmore Jones on drums and Ben Woods on keyboards. The two Hattaways, Ben Woods and either Jones or Ryan Chin on drums are the nucleus of the band.
“All Dat Love” is expertly rendered in grainy realistic mid-fi from recordings made by Adam and mixed on 4-track by Melted Ice Cream stalwart Brian Feary.
Melted Ice Cream says “Recommended if you like: The Band, Ariel Pink, The 3Ds, Neil Young, Toy Love.” I’d add to that eclectic list: Velvet Crush, Ty Segall, White Fence, Wurld Series and Matthew Sweet (his classic 1991 “Girlfriend” album with those twin duelling guitar parts from Television’s Richard Lloyd and former Voidoid Robert Quine comes to mind).
There’s an excellent single-shot video for “Turn Around” here too:
Pop Lib 