The Hecks are ready for their star turn.

Photo by Ashleigh Dye

Chicago's The Hecks released their sophomore album My Star a few months ago, and it took a while to work my way through my thoughts around it. Upon first listen, it sounded like the trio gleefully pilfered their sound from all kindsa obvious targets including Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Devo, Wire, and XTC—honestly, it sounded a bit all over the place to me. And the rather straightforward approach to the drum programming, while aiming for more acoustic sounds, also served to institute a sameness to the sound that might have caused me to dig in deeper and overlook the band's actual strengths.

But there was something in there that caused me to go back after my initial listen and notes. I think the. In some ways this is a sonic throwback, but closer inspection reveals there's a lot more thought going on in the construction of this collection than might initially reveal itself. The guitars stab back and forth at each other in conversation throughout many of the songs, creating spiky discourse that stitches the music together in intricate patterns. And the lyrics had more depth that emerged after spending a little more time with the sometimes rhythmically frenzied vocals.

Upon learning The Hecks worked on a previous version of this album in 2017, only to scrap that and rebuild the songs from the ground up as they added personnel, I dug through the group's debut and it was then that I really appreciated what a leap My Star is for the band. I had initially written The Hecks off as a party band more into their idols and image than their music, and I now realized my mistake.

But heck, The Hecks don't need my help to get local attention. I see they just opened for Whitney recently, and have a plum spot in an upcoming Tomorrow Never Knows showcase at Lincoln Hall this month. However, if you are unfamiliar with the band, now might be just the time to rectify that situation. And even if you already knew about the band but lost track of them over the last few years, I think you'll be surprised at the slowly unveiling beauty of My Star.