Scot­tish pop duo Hue And Cry release their 16th stu­dio album: Every­body on May 29. Broth­ers Greg and Pat Kane, who ini­tial­ly rose to fame in the 80s with Labour of Love (and their debut album Seduced and Aban­doned) are back with a set of songs that prove how they can shapeshift and evolve their sound. 

The new album came togeth­er over two years of exper­i­men­ta­tion, as the duo immersed them­selves in ana­logue and dig­i­tal music tech – Deep­Mind arpeg­gia­tors, hydrasynths, waveta­bles and clas­sic drum machines, with the album mixed by Yoad Nevo (Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran). 

Hue And Cry have long been known for weav­ing their polit­i­cal con­vic­tions into their lyrics, and that com­mit­ment remains intact. How­ev­er, their focus has evolved to reflect the com­plex­i­ties of the mod­ern world, address­ing issues such as cli­mate change, social polar­i­sa­tion and a grow­ing sense of powerlessness. 

The album’s synth-dri­ven, funk-infused mate­r­i­al explores these themes while con­vey­ing the idea that, despite every­thing, love remains what mat­ters most.As lead vocal­ist Pat Kane explains: “It turns out that Every­body is a love album – but that can mean love of jus­tice, love of tech, love of the future, as much as of our beloveds.”

That pos­i­tive spir­it kicks off the album with Stronger, an ener­getic open­er bub­bling up from some­where deep in its soul. Dri­ven by puls­ing synths and an uplift­ing groove, it sets the tone with its mes­sage of resilience and hope: “let the soft­est kind of pow­er make me stronger.” The mes­sage is rein­forced in the fol­low­ing num­ber Every­body Deserves To Be Loved. And Pat’s dis­tinc­tive, strong bari­tone remains the same.

The strongest track on the album is 90s house sound­ing Make My Day: a catchy, funk-drenched num­ber designed for sum­mer dance floors, its strong vocals and skit­ter­ing, crisp per­cus­sion punch­ing out the beat. There’s noth­ing too thought-pro­vok­ing going on here, this is a club track, and if you can remem­ber the infec­tious cho­rus, “Make my day… make my day, make my day” you’ll be fine.

The mood and pace shift with And Then You Bloom for some­thing more reflec­tive. Dis­solve and Dis­ap­pear stays with the mood before things pow­er up again in a funky direc­tion with the deli­cious I Remem­ber.

One of the high­lights of Every­body is penul­ti­mate track Force Majeure, wrap­ping flut­ter­ing synths around deep orches­tra­tion and show­cas­ing Pat’s steady, soul­ful and expres­sive vocals.

Every­body demon­strates that Hue And Cry remain cre­ative­ly ambi­tious and will­ing to explore new direc­tions. If there’s any crit­i­cism here it’s that the duo felt the need to con­strict all the songs to, on aver­age, four min­utes long: they could have squeezed more out of some of the com­po­si­tions to ful­ly let them shine. Force Majeure feels like it has a lot more to give. Their embrace of tech­nol­o­gy, com­bined with a con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to emo­tion­al­ly hon­est song­writ­ing, gives the album its warmth and energy.

Every­body track list­ing
Stronger
Every­body Deserves to
Make My Day
And Then You Bloom
Dis­solve and Dis­ap­pear
I Remem­ber
In Our Ruins
Kin­da Blue, Kin­da Love
Force Majeure
10 Bro­ken Gods

Lim­it­ed-edi­tion ulti­mate collector’s box avail­able via Hue And Cry online store with an indi­vid­u­al­ly num­bered cer­tifi­cate. Along­side a hand signed Every­body album on CD, with a unique mar­ble designed 12” Vinyl album; Blu-Ray con­tain­ing Dol­by Atmos audio mix­es of the album; exclu­sive 7” Vinyl with two addi­tion­al tracks; Live At Kelv­in­grove CD album.