The Heavy: The House That Dirt Built [COUNTER]

Why you'll love it

This Counter Records LP, pressed in the EU, comes in a printed inner sleeve. Its two big songs have soundtracked The Fighter, Ted, Borderlands 2, Batman: Arkham City and Suits.

This edition

• Printed inner sleeve
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

You may not know The Heavy by name, but there's a fair chance you've heard them in a cinema, on a games console or over the closing credits of something you binged. Their second album, out in October 2009, takes its title from the nursery rhyme "This Is the House That Jack Built" and swaps the bricks for grit: horn-blasted soul, fuzzy funk and swampy garage rock from a band out of the west of England.

Singer Kelvin Swaby and the band produced and mixed it with Jim Abbiss, recording at home and in studios in Bristol and Richmond. "How You Like Me Now?" struts in on a brass riff and a grin, "Short Change Hero" is a slow-burning spaghetti-western epic that later opened Strike Back, and "Sixteen" borrows a little from "I Put a Spell on You." Swaby has said "Sixteen" came from his years as a DJ, watching underage kids sneak into the clubs. "Long Way From Home" and "Love Like That" keep the soul revue going on side two.

It's a record that sounds like a sweaty basement gig and a film trailer at the same time, which explains why music supervisors keep calling. We've had "How You Like Me Now?" stuck in our heads since about 2010, and frankly we've stopped looking for a cure.

Also at Kops: more The Heavy on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Counter Records (cat# COUNT028), the 2009 album.