Beginning as a straight Stooges cop, Thee Hypnotics could have been a lot more. The Brit band’s first single, Love in a Different Vein, while sporting that title track, also included a track called “All Night Long.” The subject matter touched upon there is pretty obvious. But what’s really notable is the fact that the band just blatantly ripped off “TV Eye.” It’s evident in the music, but even more so in the vocal delivery of James Jones – who has nothing at all to do with the Cleveland Jim Jones fellow who had a hand in not just Pere Ubu, but the Mirrors as well.

On the strength of that single as well as the Live’r Than God!, Thee Hypnotics found themselves in the enviable position of having a disc distributed by Sub Pop Records. While Live’r saw release in Europe through Beggars Banquent, the Seattle imprint issued the disc just two years before it was thrust into the international spot light. Poised, alongside Mudhoney, Nirvana and a slew of other heavy groups that owed more than a passing debt to Detroit, it seemed as if Thee Hypnotics were about to achieve the success that they so wanted. The series of misfortunes that followed, though, couldn’t have been guessed at.

With a number of line up shifts as a result of car accidents and the like, the band sought to borrow a few legendary figures to sit on their subsequent recordings. Taking advantage of Phil Smith, the band went into the studio to record the follow up to Come Down Heavy, which probably should have already impacted the States. It would end up not mattering too much, as the break the band took to regroup after switching around players saw its momentum diminish.

That ’90 effort , Come Down Heavy, did work to display the ability Thee Hypnotics possessed to cop a style and not necessarily redeliver it, but to make it ever so slightly their own. There’s an odd similarity been these guys and Spacemen 3. The latter band didn’t work with music this leaden, but it was certainly tied to the Detroit scene of the ‘60s. And while Thee Hypnotics were most assuredly in some ways informed by Spacemen, the music just didn’t reflect it.

With grunge dominating the States for the remainder of the band’s career, it would have been sensible to try and figure out some further relationship with Sub Pop even as Thee Hypnotics were, by this time, working with Warner Brothers. Creating a more organic fan base might have saved the group, but by ’94, the band had released its last album and effectively slunk off into the dark corners of forgotten music that almost was.

The only reason I was able to hear about these folks was as a result of the previously discussed Pspyched compilation. The track on there, "Justice in Freedom," while monstrous, wasn’t really achieved again during the band’s career. And after that first single, it kinda seemed like it was all down hill.