It’s hard to categorise five-piece south London band HMLTD by genre. Often described as ‘underground punks’, glam-rock, experimental, New Romantics, their first album West of Eden was released days before the world went into lockdown in early 2020. Today, they’re opting for ‘operatic rock’. Their sophomore album, The Worm (out today), draws on frontman Henry Spychalski’s own psycho-spiritual struggles, politics, and disdain for systems of power, influenced by a range of sounds from Broadway musicals to classical symphonies.
“We’ve matured as people and naturally when you mature as people you start listening to classical music. With this album we’ve made it a lot more organic and tried to make it so it’s all played by live instruments. We’ve got a 16-piece orchestra and a gospel choir, everything is played very acoustically, it sounds a lot more organic.” says 27-year-old Spychalski, who grew up in Torquay and is now south London-based along with bandmates Achilleas Sarantaris, Duc Peterman, Nico Mohnblatt and Seth Evans.
