HAMFATTER ~ WHAT PART OF HAMFATTER DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

We tried very hard to be brave. To go with a gut instinct. To not sit astride the musical fence. To make a statement. We tried to proclaim Dragons as the sole-owners of this month's Record of the Month. But we are weak. A last minute listen to Hamfatter's magnum opus and reason was lost. There is nothing left for it, this month and this month only, there must be two Records of the Month. The charm, wit and hedonistic listening pleasure of British popular music, we are pleased to announce, is alive, well and living somewhere in Cambridge. The lyrical sharpness of The Kinks' Ray Davies, the chirpy invention of Blur or the art-school attic rooms of Belle and Sebastian are redefined and given life again by Hamfatter. What Part Of Hamfatter Do You Not Understand? is their feelgood, genius, new album that will make you laugh and cry in equal parts. Idiosyncratic grins and despairingly lonely moments are firmly back on the playlist agenda.

The lead track and newly released single 'Sziget (We Get Wrecked)' is, if you do nothing else after reading this, a must download track. Come on, cough up less than a quid and let's get these boys some much deserved chart action. Hamfatter are worthy of some daytime playlist fun, together we can force the happy sound of radio to play Hamfatter and be beautifully confused. Our previous exposure to Hamfatter came in the guise of Girls In Graz, their second album which enjoyed Top 5 success in Austria! We have to confess we found Girls In Graz to be charming, interesting and engaging. But equally it's a record we allowed to slip to the back of the record box, much to our eternal shame! However, What Part Of Hamfatter Do You Not Understand? has kicked our collective behinds and reminded us what we should not have been missing. From the upbeat tales of drunken nights in 'Sziget' with a pop chorus most bands would die for, to the bio-graphical narrative of 'Come Along' the pictures Hamfatter paint for us are bright, light, breezy but with darker tales of ordinary madness veiled beneath it's layered canvasses.

A journey through What Part Of Hamfatter Do You Not Understand? provides plenty of stops at pavement cafes, peeling-paint upstairs apartments, drunken bar-room conversations and a multitude of colourful, off-beat characters to spend a minute chatting to. The 90 lyrics a minute Blur-esque power-pop of 'Karma' or the melancholic introspection of 'Intro' bouncing into '21st Century Sex' create flipside portraits of the underground Little Britain that form a modern 2007 take on the phenomenon that is British quality pop music. Hamfatter define autobiographical songwriting. These are songs about life well-lived, not songs about a life they would like to live. Created from time spent in a broken down tour bus in the French mountains or drinking wine and smoking weed with the off-kilter head-f*cked people with real stories to tell. "How sweet it is to be shunned by you" indeed. British pop at the top of it's game. Steve Lamacq's listening, Huw Stephens is listening. Are you?

Reviewed in Fuse, UK

The answer to your first question is that it is an old term meaning "a third-rate minstrel, variety artist or actor". The answer to your next question is yes, they are good. And the answer to your third is that they sound like updated Britpop, like smart guitar pop with pithy lyrics and a tongue so far in their collective cheeks it’s a wonder the singer can enunciate all those verbose lyrics. After being together a handful of years the Cambridge trio of Eoin O’Mahoney, James ‘Jimbo’ Ingham and Mark Ellis have already tasted Austrian chart success with single ‘Girls in Graz’. Recently with ‘Sziget’ (pronounced ‘see’-get’, as in the music festival) from their third album they charmed their way into the UK single charts at number 54. Like most of the album, the single combines all the strutting, smirking, oomphy chords of Britpop guitar bands with biographical tales of a stereotypical 21st century bohemia. If you want comparisons, think Franz Ferdinand and 1990s knowing, sarcastic, feel-good, danceable indie with a bit more strings and brass thrown in. Think what The Divine Comedy used to do but aren’t doing any more.

Stomping through topics such as music festivals, travelling, myspace and practicing Rachmaninov on the piano the album is consistently joyous, making it tough to pick stand-out favourites. However, once the full on dizzy effervescence of track three, ‘Karma’, kicks in you’ll be smitten, and once the tender melodrama of ‘How Sweet It Is’ (with ‘loved by you’ replaced with ‘shunned by you’) tugs wryly at your heart strings you’ll be swooning. Even the pretentious excesses of ‘Dancing Shoes’ (typical lyric: "We won’t cross the bridge for love nor Kerouac") are forgiven. Hamfatter is the gregarious, arrogant and utterly irresistible raconteur around whom everyone flocks at a party. Every exorbitant lyric, every swooping, orchestral moment that makes full use of O’Mahoney’s sonorous voice and every exultant chorus that ratchets the pace up conspire to win over the most cynical of hearts. Buy it and fall in love with wanton abandon now.

Reviewed in Is This Music? by Charlotte Grey, UK

You could probably make a pretty fair guess at what Cambridge-based Hamfatter is all about based on the band’s name and album title. What Part Of Hamfatter Do You Not Understand? is an album crammed with big guitars, liquor, catchy riffs, strings, pop culture, trumpets, and wry lyrics. It’s a schizo-phrenic cross-genre journey of exhilarating guitar-pop. Album opener and first single 'Sziget (We Get Wrecked)' is a bouncy little number about getting drunk while watching Radiohead and Gogol Bordello
at Hungary’s Sziget Festival, probably something we can all relate to. We go straight from Sziget to the swingy 'Come Along', which boasts the lyric “I had an acid flashback at the very back stand of the Rufus Wainwright concert with clothes off”. The name dropping doesn’t stop there, either; Anton Barbeau, Mick Hucknall, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Jack Kerouac and Elvis Presley are all acknowledged on the album as well. Hamfatter is remarkably adept at crossing genres, using strings and horns to help them along the way. '21st Century Sex', while less about sex and more about learning to play Rachmaninoff on the piano and the pitfalls of spending too much time on MySpace, features swirling strings and acoustic guitar. The reggae-tinged 'Do Something Stupid' will have you dancing in no time with its catchy chorus. More lovely string arrangements and a piano give 'How Sweet It Is' an almost big band feel, and the guitar on 'Dancing Shoes' even exhibits a bit of an island touch.

Besides the clever lyrics and successful genre-jumping, mention should be made of Eoin O’Mahony’s sonorous and very pleasant vocals. He especially displays an impressive scope on 'Karma', ranging from practically spitting the lyrics to singing in a sweet falsetto. His crooning on 'How Sweet It Is' contributes to the big band style, and you can practically hear his smirk in 'Dancing Shoes' when he warns “don’t fuck with us ’cause we will set your dancing shoes on fire”. The album loses some steam with the punky 'I Want To Be You' and 'Welcome In' - fair songs, but they just aren’t quite as interesting, musically or lyrically, as other tracks on the album. Things look up again, though, with 'This Day Won’t Die', a lovely tune that is one of the reasons Hamfatter is so often compared to Belle & Sebastian. Before hearing What Part Of Hamfatter Do You Not Understand?, I didn’t understand any part of it. Hamfatter’s MySpace proclaims it “a third rate minstrel, variety artist or actor”. Clears things right up, there, doesn’t it? Though minstrel, artist, and even actor may apply, Hamfatter is a band that is hardly third rate. Give the album a listen and perhaps you too will understand: it’s Hamfatter. Nothing too deep, but a heck of a lot of fun. (79%)

Reviewed in The Line Of Best Fit by Bridget Helgoth, UK

Ignore the terrible band name and awful title, the year’s best kept indie secret is here. Hamfatter are a Cambridge three piece who have set about documenting life in a band with endearing honesty and no shortage of humour. The vocals evoke Belle and Sebastian, early David Bowie and shades of overlooked chamber-pop genius, Jake Shillingford, of My Life Story fame. 'Sziget' is an indie anthem about performing, well, indie anthems at the Hungarian festival of the same name, while 'How Sweet It Is' is a show-stopping marvel that Marc Almond would sound entirely at home on, and confirmation that this band are capable of great things. Even if the entire album wasn’t full of quintessentially British storytelling, not dissimilar to Damon Albarn in his Britpop pomp, and riffs large enough to put billboards on, I’d be tempted to give this album a hugely positive review. The reason? One track, 'At Home Here', features an inspired assault on Mick Hucknall. The bit we can print is, “his sum contribution to the world of music has been negative.” The bit we can’t will make youlove this band just that little bit more.

Reviewed in The Word by Gareth James, UK

First up, two hilarious things about Hamfatter. They describe themselves as “Badly Drawn Boy with amphetamines sprinkled in his tea” and they give the dictionary definition of their daft name on their new album booklet – “n. a third-rate minstrel, variety or actor, v. to act badly or ineffectively”. But there’s nothing third rate about their third album and there’s something quintessentially English about their witty kitchen sink dramas that makes it a hugely entertaining listen. Hamfatter’s sonic palette includes indie rock, Sixties pop, horns, strings and, above all, style. (CS)

Reviewed in The Sun, UK

Cambridge trio Hamfatter are as refreshing as a lemon sorbet in the Kalahari. Delightfully unpretentious, they document university town bohemian life with wry and perceptive lyrics, minimal instrumental prowess, sparky arrangements and drums that sound like cardboard boxes. As they should. (JB)

Reviewed in Hi-Fi News, UK

The nice people at Pink Hedgehog have high hopes for this record, even an assault on the charts perhaps! Well, The CD gets off to a good start with the autobiographical ‘Sziget (We Get Wrecked)’ (well they would go to a Radiohead concert and play there!), as demonstrative an opener as the intoxicating ‘Girls In Graz’ off the last album - nice backwards guitar break by the way. Yes, Hamfatter is an indie ‘pop’ band in the fine tradition of the likes of Belle and Sebastian and like their Scottish counterparts Hamfatter take a risk with their music. There are more twists and turns than a Highland road as the brass infused hand clapper ‘Come Along’ and the bittersweet ‘Karma’ confirm. The acoustic guitar and string introduction to ‘21st Century Sex’, an autobiographical account of a young man’s early adult life experiences ("I was 17 years old with a new driving licence") are just perfect (with a dig at spending too much time on My Space and not partaking of real life). Sometimes, Hamfatter songs read like a travelogue but that only makes them all the more intriguing. The characters inhabiting the songs are writ large like the landlady who "takes too much drugs" in ‘21st Century Sex’. Frustrations sometimes spill over as songwriter Eoin O’Mahony intones in the lines "haven’t got a hope" in the quasi reggae shuffle of ‘Do Something Stupid Tonight’. The soulful ‘How Sweet It Is’ shows what a good lead singer Eoin is with an earnest delivery that Morrissey would be proud off and a nice vaudevillian piano flourish at the end - it’s the attention to detail in the arrangements and instrumentation that makes Hamfatter really special.

The Bratlgeiger String Ensemble do the band proud on songs such as ‘Dancing Shoes’- despite the sweary words Hamfatter show a literary bent on this one! (On songs like this and the infectiously funky and touching closer ‘At Home Here’ he canvas is apparently Cambridge’s Bohemian quarter). "What have I done with my life except possibly belong here?" pleads Eoin. The punkish ‘I Want To Be You’ is, once again, no holds barred musically or literally. Commercial potential? Certainly! Wake up and smell the coffee, folks - Hamfatter could well be the next big indie band! Whether they are or aren’t they have confirmed with this release that they are serious players in the music world and their idiosyncratic charm is here to stay! Oh, and by the way, ‘Girls in Graz’ reached #3 in the Austrian charts (There’s a timely reminder on the bonus 13th track!) and ‘Sziget’ is, at the time of writing, sniffing around the UK top 50. Now how many hits can you think of about a music festival in Budapest and how many bands name check Listz, Rachmaninov and Kerouac? Intrigued, you should be. Go buy!

Reviewed in Zeitgeist by Phil Jackson, UK

It's a constant worry of mine why some bands are not promoted or recognised as much
as they should be. Hamfatter wouldn't go amiss amongst the indie elite but you could ask any of those self satisfied arseholes if they'd heard of Hamfatter and they'd look at you blankly. It's not fair. So infuriatingly unfair. As if it wasn't enough to know that Kirsten Dunst is going out with that fuck witted little troll from Razorlight. This, their third LP (savour the death) is choc full of nicely composed melodic pieces which, if we lived in a fair world, would have them at the mainstream festivals every year, playing to fields full of adoring fans who would be singing every word. I implore everyone to give this band a go and if you're not caught under the idiosyncratic Britishness of their sound, you are merely a walking shell of a man (or woman).

Reviewed in Repeat Fanzine by Richey Peaches, UK

"Ham'fat-er = A third rate minstrel, variety artist or actor." From the opening track 'Sziget (We Get Wrecked)', your high expectations of the comical Cambridge threesome appear to be fulfilled. A colourful and highly entertaining band name and album sleeve make it difficult from the off, to dislike the band you feel like you already know. 'Come Along', '21st Century Sex' and 'Dancing Shoes' are the album highlights, taking the Artic Monkeys lyrical realism to the next level. Myspace remarks such as "Myspace - what have you achieved? You've got 500 new friends and not one of them knows your real name" provides the witty homely humour of lead singer and band mastermind Eoin O'Mahony. They provide a perfect comparison, mixing pleasant melodies with crude or harsh tongue in cheek lyrics; from getting wrecked listening to Radiohead on main stage, to burning the dancing shoes of those who "fuck with us". Hamfatter simply provide for everybody, amusing lyrically and generally just a very good band. Feel good big choruses such as in the second track 'Come Along' provide sing-along moments first listen and the sarcastic 'Karma'; "We don't care cos we've got money, we've got coffee..." are catchy from the off.

'I Want To Be You' is a song that no doubt most can relate to, the need to be somebody
else, go as far as to sleep with them because the desire to hate them is so strong. And
this appears to be the beauty of the Cambridge three piece. The ability to relate to every song is unique, sounding like no other band I can honestly fully relate them to. Three lads just hanging about in a garage writing about their daily events appears to be the appea of Hamfatter - 'Do Something Stupid Tonight' is a classic example relating to the drunken antics of many and gossip gatherings days later; "I'm gonna do something stupid tonight, so I've got something I can write about tomorrow". Yet at points, the album loses its buzz and becomes merely a pretty cover with not so impressive weaker tracks such as 'Welcome In' and 'At Home Here'. The end of the album drags a little bit, from catchy 'I Want To Be You' onwards, the substance is missing, disappointing ending to a really entertaining overall package, yet don't let it faze you. Hamfatter have performed for the main stage in this release, live performances in June this year are eagerly anticipated.

Reviewed in Room Thirteen by Mel Lewis, UK