"Again & Again" is The Hugs latest release (10/6/09) and is available for download right now !

Recorded, mixed, produced and egineered by Shay S. Scott & The Hugs at Klickitat Band Camp Studio in NE Portland from March 2009 to July 2009 and Self Released on 6th October, 2009.

‘The Hugs’ latest effort Again and Again is a chronology of a band who have sailed the rough seas of the contemporary music industry and have returned to land with staunch and bite.

Following an unsuccessful jaunt with London’s 1965 Records, the LP was recorded at neighborhood basement studio Klickitat Band Camp in their hometown of Portland, and it seeps with unexpected experience and maturity. Without shedding their jovial Brit-poppy swathe Oregonian four-piece have developed a delicate melancholy edge. Under the umbrella of everyday life, the band explore the nuances of love over time and the dubious relationship between dreams and reality.

What resulted was a naturally diverse album, generally nurtured in a pop-rock discipline but with sprouts of placid integrity. Splashes of sombre finger-picking evolve into springy headnod-worthy choruses. Kinksian pop-rock swagger is adorned with zesty four-part harmonies, while a murky contemplative undercurrent ebbs and flows.

“Dreams” seduces with cyclic guitar melodies and occasional bongo beats, calling on Revolver-era Beatles at their trippiest, before the reverb kicks in and Delegato lets rip with the fiery warning ‘get out of my dreams’ augmented by grungy Vines-like chorus harmonies.

But The Hugs don’t stray too far from their more renowned frivolous side. The raucous “Go Wild” takes you through an explosive party bender – a pending crowd-favourite for sure. Funky “Never Gonna Live, Never Going To Die” fluctuates between a seductive disco rhythm and a grungy build up before reaching a somewhat manic tipping-point (“this…may…be…the…last…day”).