Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy (LP)

Heavy Heavy lands with the kind of thump you feel in your ribs before you can name it. Young Fathers have always chased that sensation, the charge that happens when rhythm, voice, and a half-snarled hook collide, and this record tightens the screws on all of it. The Scottish trio of Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole, and Graham Hastings turned in a lean, urgent set here, released in February 2023 on Ninja Tune, that sounds communal and rough-sawn yet impossibly focused. It is the shortest route between their earliest scrappy tapes and the widescreen ambition that won them the Mercury Prize for Dead in 2014, and it might be the most immediate thing they have made.

You can hear the mission statement in “Geronimo,” the first taste most of us got before the album dropped. The song climbs a ladder of claps and chant-like vocals, verses tumbling over one another while the hook keeps tugging upward. “I Saw” goes even harder. It starts like a street procession, drums and call-and-response locked in, then swells into something that feels ceremonial. The way their voices braid together is the trick. No one plays the conventional frontman, so the verses feel like a crowd speaking, and the choruses feel like a verdict.

“Tell Somebody” is the track that stops you cold. It builds from a near whisper to a roof-lifting gospel surge, a reminder that the group’s power has always been as much devotional as it is confrontational. The arrangement lets air in at just the right moments. A simple piano figure, a hum that becomes a harmony, then the wave hits. “Rice” counters with joy and swing, all clipped percussion and a hook that sticks. Young Fathers have always juggled abrasion and uplift, but here the balance feels instinctive, like they trusted their first idea and captured it before it got sanded down.

Part of that comes from how they work. Heavy Heavy is self-produced, tracked in their own space in Edinburgh, and it sounds like it. You can hear the room in the handclaps and the scuffed drum textures, the way gang vocals blur at the edges. There are moments that feel almost handmade, like someone grabbed the nearest object that could make a sound and hit record. Then, out of nowhere, a string line or a synth pad slides in and the whole thing moves from basement to cathedral. That contrast has been their signature since Tape One and Tape Two, but the edits are cleaner now. Songs step into the light, do their job, and leave.

The reception matched the impact. Heavy Heavy drew a five-star review from the Guardian and a Mercury Prize shortlist in 2023, the kind of twin signal that says both fans and critics heard the same spark. It also connected live. These songs were built to be shouted back, and when the percussion barrels in on “I Saw” or “Drum” kicks loose in the set, you can feel that loose-limbed, shoulder-to-shoulder chemistry the trio have cultivated for a decade. They came up in small rooms and still play like it matters if the back wall is listening.

If you collect, Heavy Heavy shines on wax. The low-end throb and the layers of voice make more sense when the needle is digging into grooves, a small riot contained in a circle of plastic. File it next to other Young Fathers albums on vinyl and you can trace their evolution in textures alone, from the tape grit of the early EPs to the muscular clarity here. It has become one of those records you recommend to friends who think they do not like “hip-hop” or “indie” because the categories fall apart after two songs. Search out Heavy Heavy vinyl and you will find it in steady rotation at any good shop, the kind of album clerks slip into the in-store playlist to make heads turn. If you prefer to buy Young Fathers records online, this is an easy add to cart. I have even spotted copies in a couple of Melbourne record store racks while digging through new arrivals, and it felt right. The music sounds like the world passing through a single room.

Young Fathers have a way of turning limits into style. Short songs, few moving parts, no wasted motion. But the scope still feels big, almost cinematic, because the choruses sound like they were sung by everybody. Heavy Heavy is their reminder that small ideas can carry a lot of weight if you believe in how they hit. Put it on loud, let the drums rattle the shelves, and see if you do not start humming along with the neighbors. Young Fathers vinyl has always rewarded that kind of volume and proximity. This one just makes the point faster.