Hovercraft – Blown Away

Hovercraft’s Blown Away closes out the Bond-themed trilogy on the rawest note. Where the earlier records leaned into cleaner reinterpretation, this one keeps its hands dirty with jagged indie punk edges and early ideas left with their seams visible. Opener Indie Kid lands like a cult sitcom or indie drama theme, with a close female vocal and guitar that snaps and scratches but still carries a little funk swing.

The mix keeps the voice right in front, so the attitude and character of the singer do as much work as the riff. It is tight, catchy, and instantly visual, which makes sense as the gateway into a project built from fragments and memory.

Superman pushes that accessibility further. The “I just wanna be a superman and fly” hook is the most obvious ear-grabber on the record, and the song has a straight, clean tunefulness that feels built for repeat plays. It is easy to imagine editors gravitating to that chorus, but it still fits the project’s rough frame, sitting next to tracks that are messier and more volatile. These Days is one of the record’s most interesting turns. The chord changes twist in ways that give a pleasant lift, hinting at its roots in old four track experiments and tape manipulation.

You can hear the Jam-style drive in its bones, even as the reconstruction gives it a slightly dreamier tilt. Oh Yeah keeps the tempo up but smears some dirt over everything. The guitar tone feels rougher, the female vocal grows more ragged, and the track leans into grit without losing its cool swagger.

Pass The Night Nurse marks a shift. The instrumental sounds like it is coming through a damaged or waterlogged speaker, with a filtered, warped quality that separates it from the more direct guitar songs up front. Low then steps into slower territory with an R&B and soul flavour, which broadens the album’s scope and shows how easily these songs move between spiky indie and something smoother and more nocturnal. The back half, from Angel through Concrete Hill, traces that same balance of rawness and reach, from acoustic longing and defiance to punk roots that eventually explode into alt-dance territory. As a preservation project, Blown Away carries extra weight, knowing these are reconstructions of Charlie “Pepper” Wildman’s mid 90s work, pulled from cardboard boxes instead of proper archives.

You can feel both care and risk in that approach. The AI-assisted rebuild and modern mastering give clarity, but the record still honours the jagged, unvarnished quality that made these ideas worth saving in the first place. From a sync angle, Blown Away has several clear lanes. Indie Kid and Superman, with their close female vocals, guitar bite, and hooky writing, fit TV main titles, character montages, and lighter drama sequences.

The more experimental textures of Pass The Night Nurse and the slower R&B feel of Low lean toward moodier scenes, late night sequences, or leftfield drama moments that need grit in the guitars and a human, slightly damaged edge in the voice.