Released on 25th August, and available to pre-order at https://hatsoffgentlemen.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-lives, Parallel Lives is the ninth album from the very productive, and very good, duo of Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland (once again, we hear Malcolm’s wife Kathryn Thomas guesting on flute and bass flute on a couple of tracks).
We have eleven pieces of music, plus a couple of radio edits to discuss.
If you type “Hats Off” into the search engine of this website, you will see my previous reviews of the band’s output, and, in the interview the band kindly gave me https://lazland.org/interviews/hats-off-gentlemen-its-adequate I discuss the health issues Malcolm has had to confront, but these, as the notes to this album make clear, have now only increased. To quote:
“About a year and a half ago, around the time we were developing the tracks that became this album, I found out that I have a rare, incurable, progressive, neurodegenerative retinal disease that is causing progressive visual loss and distortion. I’ve previously had other medical problems that had led to me having to give up my previous career, and I had thought I’d found a way of coping with those while still feeling able to keep creatively active.
Although I haven’t been consciously worrying about my eyes, (possibly emotionally in denial), this diagnosis coincided with me deteriorating mentally in other ways. I am aware that other people have worse problems, and am not wanting to make a fuss, but it knocked my sense of my identity and future. Whether deliberately or not, this has fed into the music on this album.”
This website’s best wishes are sent to this uniquely talented artist.
Let’s discuss a very powerful musical statement. In providing you with the background stories from this album, I am quoting directly from the notes provided by the band.
My Blistering Mind is sung from the perspective of someone struggling with mental health issues (mention of ‘splintering mind’ in the song means a mind that has jagged edges that cause pain, rather than anything related to schizophrenia or multiple-personality disorders). It is hard-hitting from the off, the vocals a rap, Gatland providing a supreme bass melody before Galloway’s more familiar voice takes centre stage, the emotion of the mental battles very much recreated in the emotion wrung out of the words, and there are also some disturbing noises produced almost as interludes in an intense track which rewards repeated listens.
The Mandatory Prize is sung from the perspective of an authority figure informing someone that they are obliged to play a role that they haven’t chosen, and that they are supposed to at least pretend that they are grateful. In an exaggerated way, via the influence of a Philip K Dick short story, it is about social masking. As a lifelong civil servant, I am very familiar with this concept, dedicated people forever being moved or told to work on pointless projects, and to banish all thought of “negativity”, lest it impair their climb up the career ladder. The rhythm foundation thumps out of the speaker, the relentless beat of the modern professional treadmill, the vocals deliberately dripping with satire at the masters conducting the farce. Brilliant in its understanding of human dynamics.
Never Really Felt Like Home is a melancholic instrumental, featuring Thomas on flute, bass flute, and piccolo, and, boy, does she provide such a rich, warm sound, especially on that bass flute, and the light touches on Galloway’s guitar and the bassline of Gatland perfectly complement her work. As the more recognisable flute takes over, the warmth of the music is there, only enhanced when we hear such a beautiful, yet understated, guitar solo. This will definitely be a contender for the website’s “instrumental of 2026” award in December. Modern classical progressive rock at its finest, and a track I will bring to you on my radio show when the album is officially released.
Smile, Smile, Smile was inspired by Philip K Dick’s novel ‘Flow My Tears The Policeman Said’, published in 1974. In the novel, the protagonist (Jason Taverner) wakes up in a world where he is no longer one of the most famous people on the planet. He goes from being a highly privileged person in a police-state, to an undocumented person, and therefore at constant risk of being sent to a forced labour camp. Dick was a fascinating writer, and HOGIA have taken a huge amount of inspiration from him. There is a brooding jazz-rock sensibility to this track, and we get more of Galloway’s rapping, something which I confess has taken a little while to get used to. When he talks about “nobody knows who you are”, it is difficult to escape the feeling that this is a fate that our musical protagonists would happily visit upon any number of the inane “celebrities” who clog up our ever so noisy modern lives. Brooding and challenging as a listen.
We then have a brief Intermission, a dissonant piano and bass continuing the distinctive jazz hallmark of this record.
The title track follows. It is about the way we tend to drift apart, whether on an individual or societal level, without either side having deliberately decided to do that. Kathryn joins Malcolm on vocals for this track. I love the further interplay between piano (impactful in its sparsity) and bass on this track, and Galloway’s vocals deliver an aching sadness at the situation, and his wife harmonises with him wonderfully effectively. Thoughtful, perfectly delivered, emotional music.
Eversion is inspired by the Alastair Reynolds novel and explores issues of masking and identity - a surgeon finds himself repeatedly living through similar experiences in different historical periods, something catered for, of course, in varying quantum physics theories. The opening passage is pure smoky jazz bar music, the piano moving up and down the scale, the bass melody creating a distinct groove, the storytelling vocally worthy of a Hammill, the ability to move from understated jazz to explosive riffs in the blink of an eye mightily impressive. The guitar solo has a lot of depth to it. I really like this track, right up there with the best of 2026.
Pretty Blue Fox is named after a game-playing group in Philip K Dick’s 1963 novel ‘The Game Players Of Titan’. It is a futuristic piece, synth effects and organ pulsing across the senses, with a fascinating bassline rising and falling beneath, before the synths create a very pretty soundscape, so essentially HOGIA electronica before the second half expands the piece, quite playfully in parts, with brass effects parping and the keys sparkling with clever life, the bass urgent alongside a driving drum riff. Nice contrasts in an interesting instrumental.
Just Another Thing is specifically inspired by Malcolm’s recent diagnosis and is about outwardly being someone who just copes with whatever life flings at them but not feeling how you seem. The paradox is clear immediately, with a bright guitar riff offset by an urgent Galloway rap almost wildly babbling about his public face before another thing added to the list, being thrown on the pile, and here you simply must provide space for wondering just how this fine musician copes and still provide us with so much quality music. Deeply personal and very good, I like the synth solo and subsequent guitar work infused with 80’s influenced waves of sound.
Dropping the Mask is another instrumental and is a track with jazz fusion at its heart, an impressive array of keyboards used, with some nice synth overlays, the bass all the time throbbing in the distance, the track expanding wonderfully with a full-on Hackett-esque guitar riff. A supreme noise.
The album proper closes with a song intended to be more hopeful, Just Hold On (Pts 1 and 2). Originally the first section of the song was written as a classical piece for choir, but it gradually evolved into the introduction to ‘Just Hold On’. As the choir fades away, there is a guitar solo, and later the vocals and rest of the instruments join in. The song is intended to represent someone encouraging someone else, or perhaps themselves, that it’s not too late to try to embrace life. Many people don’t find life easy, many struggles are invisible, and sometimes just managing to hold on is an achievement worth celebrating. Amen to that, Malcolm, for sure. This is the longest of the tracks, just over nine minutes, and the choral introduction is filled with sound accompanied by a rich synth. The guitar solo is full of hope, the soundscapes above it lush, and with it we are led into part 2, the lyrics in that spirit of urging positivity I remember from Gabriel’s Wallflower, although, of course, these words are far more personal to Galloway, and the lonely piano accompanying the words “it’s not too late” is evocative before the inevitable expansion of sound. It is incredibly moving, emotion wrought from each and every note and word, the track the second contender here for a “song of 2026” award here. Stunning.
I have embedded below for you the radio edit of My Blistering Mind, and the other radio edit is of The Mandatory Prize.
There is a progression in every HOGIA album. I have spent today listening to three of this work’s predecessors before finalising my words pre-edit, and the handwritten note I have from that session is; “This might well be their finest”.
A mandatory purchase.