Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate have been a working act since 2009 and released their debut album, Invisible, in 2012. The Confidence Trick is their sixth album, and the core duo of Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland are once again joined on a delicious flute by Galloway’s wife, Kathryn Thomas.

Over the years, their music has been compared to many of the progressive rock giants, but my take on them is that they are rather unique and certainly offer a melodic eclectic range of rock music. This album is a fine one and their best, in my opinion.

The work is not a concept album as such but is linked by an overarching theme of cognitive errors, particularly overconfidence, and as a result our repeated failure to learn the lessons of history, something which is, in my opinion, very much a theme for our times in terms of mass followers of the narcissism displayed by populist “leaders”.

There are several differing moods and themes on this album, but I want to start this review by discussing a simply gorgeous piece of music which deals with a subject I have always been fascinated with. Refuge is an instrumental track written by Galloway and is inspired by the story of his Jewish great-grandmother’s flight from persecution and ultimate victory over the pogroms and fascists. She was born in Lithuania and fled to Riga, then Moscow before being stranded in Paris on route to Philadelphia owing to the outbreak of WWI – her husband was killed in this conflict when she was pregnant with Galloway’s grandmother, an impossibly sad situation. When the horrors of WWII erupted, she fled the threat of the Nazis to the Pyrenees (a risky place under Franco’s regime) where she was protected and sheltered by locals. A remarkable story of I am sure a remarkable woman, and such bravery (and human compassion by those sheltering her) was commonplace and a beacon of light in an extremely dark time, and the writer of this extremely moving tribute is right to state that some of the language being used by politicians in 2022 seems to be a direct repetition of that which brought about the most terrible and unforgiveable genocide. We keep making the same mistakes

The piece itself is over ten minutes long and achieves with blissful ease that difficult trick of giving us music which speaks without having any words. It is a classical music piece, with a beautifully delicate piano at the start leading us into some wonderful orchestration. The opening tells us of a happy childhood and life before some darker keys arrive heralding the antisemite pogrom which leads to the initial flight. There is a sense of panic and chaos at the outbreak of WWI and the sadness which oozes from the piano five and a half minutes in when the husband is killed is palpable, but also starkly beautiful as only the finest classical music can be. The interbellum is a calming period before once again Europe erupts into chaos. The interplay between piano and flute some eight minutes in as you can sense her weighing up her options is extremely interesting, before wider synths and guitars bring us the flight and eventual settling into her destination. The final forty seconds or so are calm and obviously that peace post-war.

In the liner notes, Galloway writes “I hope she would have liked it”. I would go a wee bit further. I am bloody sure that she is up there looking down feeling proud of the progeny’s effort. A truly remarkable and quite lovely piece of music which is worth the entrance fee alone.

Sometimes when a reviewer makes a point of singling out for detailed discussion a particular piece of music, it suggests that what is to come about the rest is underwhelming, but not a bit of it in this case.

There are other instrumentals on the album. Perky Pat is based upon a doll in a Philip K. Dick story. I was never a particular fan of the author, but this six-minute piece is an interesting slab of electronica. It tells of an escape from misery into a luxurious fantasy world and the synths provide us with a sense of that luxury in their upbeat chords supported by the frenetic drum programming. Pretending to Breathe is a piece with a similar mood at the start to Perky Pat, but with some ghostly guitars added into the mix, and then with a more downbeat extended electronic passage ending in a rather dystopian feel, and what I will say about both is that if, like me, you enjoy much of Tangerine Dream’s output, or later (Gilmour-led) Floyd’s dreamier moments, you will enjoy these tracks.

Interlude is an instrumental between the wonderful Refuge and the album’s title track. It is four minutes long and is an expansive rock track in contrast to what preceded it and is thoroughly enjoyable. Gatland’s bass thumps wonderfully underneath the upbeat guitar riffs and soaring synths. The final instrumental is Lava Lamprey which the writer describes as a transition between The Confidence Trick, which is about dictatorial people taking power, to All Empires Fall, which relates to the impermanence of even the most seemingly untouchable leader. I am afraid to these ears it is the least convincing of the instrumentals, and, indeed, the weak link on an otherwise marvellous album. It just sounds to me like impenetrable noodling for the sake of it.

But let’s put that behind us, and comment upon the spoken word. The opening track is Silence is a Statement. It is a strong opener, with some thoughtful guitar chords underpinned by a repeating bass groove before the piano enters. Galloway has an interesting and evocative voice. I like the lyrical contrast between quiet, which is compliance, and silence, which can be a statement, and this is something I see daily, the tension between compliance and speaking out, sometimes silently when invited to support some ludicrous nonsense perpetrated by leaders.

Back Where I Started features some delightful flutes (Thomas also provides some very good backing vocals) and is an interesting tale about the subject of the song having a time machine who tries to fix historical wrongs, but repeatedly makes things worse. Of course, the song means that we as a human race continually forget the lessons of history and seem doomed to repeating the same old pestilence, famine & etc. On a brighter note, I do believe that we will eventually mature – in some 10,000 years, or so, anyway! This is an intelligent piece of music which blends some post rock riffs with some gorgeous orchestration and is pretty much impossible to categorise (a strong positive for this website).

End of the Line is another thoughtful piece of music, very “progressive”, with some fine blues chords and a pulsating bass pushing along a vocal which is yearning, and the flute once again is extremely evocative. Having read the author’s notes many times, I still do not get a complete understanding of the meaning of this song, but my take on it is a constant search for self, but never quite getting there. The guitar solo five and a half minutes in set against the swirling flute is simply divine.

World War Terminus is from the one Dick novel I am familiar with, namely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, or Blade Runner to most of us. The lesson of the song and its source are clear – we are heading towards another apocalyptic conflict sparked by the bloody politicians and our lemming-like behaviour in following them. The track itself brings us a suitably angry lyric with some dark riffs and chords underpinning an almost rap-like vocal. Very dystopian and very good.

Another Plague draws on Galloway’s medical experience and knowledge (he has, though, sadly had to retire owing to a genetic disorder, and lazland.org sends its best wishes to him). It tells us of a new disease which makes people’s faces disappear, found initially in marginalised groups (thus, very much based upon real life pathogens and pandemics), but spreading. The guitar work in this track is brilliant, and whilst the subject matter is not exactly cheering, especially on the back of the real-life Covid period, the music is very strong with some blues-infused synths and exploding chords exemplifying the spread of the disease. The distorted guitar shouts out very loudly the victory of the pathogen.

The title track is again blues-infused and brings us to the heart of the message of this album, that of the same old mistakes being made time and time again, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. The quiet and the grown up are ignored amid a welter of noise and cheap soundbites. We never learn. We fall for the same old political bollocks time and time again without ever seeming to think about what we are hearing. We never learn. There is a gorgeous guitar solo just short of two minutes in which cries this out without the need for any words. This is simply one of the most intelligent modern political statements I have heard from a rock band in a very long time, and proof that you do not necessarily need to shout in people’s faces to put across a message (and, yes, there are some very loud and clear Floyd influences in this track, especially the keyboard passages which are gorgeous).

All Empires Fall is unlike anything else which preceded it, certainly vocally (not thematically, because they are right – all empires do, indeed, fall, and this is a lesson the west would do well to learn as well). It is a minimalist piece of music with much of the vocals spoken as opposed to sung and the music itself very dark. The closing passage is distinctly anthemic with all protagonists chanting “you’ll rise, and you’ll fall. All empires fall” and this is especially effective.

Cygnus is extremely interesting, and the premise will be familiar to anyone in the UK, like me, who are subscribers to Private Eye.  Operation Cygnus was supposedly the UK’s readiness to fight a future pandemic. In reality (and I am very familiar with this in another government department), it was a box-ticking exercise, and we all know the disaster which Covid brought upon us, economically, socially, and in terms of health. The lyrics talk about the frontline who bore the brunt of this failure, and it is another intelligent addition to the musical Covid debate.

This has been a long review, but I hope it has given you a flavour of just how highly I rate this album. This is precisely the type of intelligent rock music which sets apart those of us who listen to and enjoy it from the masses still exposing themselves to the most godawful commercial and corporate tripe you hear on mainstream media. We never learn, indeed.

You can buy the album at https://hatsoffgentlemen.bandcamp.com/album/the-confidence-trick I did as soon as I first heard it.