Hockey @ Koko, London

There is nothing to like about Hockey. On paper any description will have you reaching for the nearest rifle, spade, whatever you can find to bludgeon them to death. It would seem futile, as they are already dead inside. They are the musical equivalent of walking aimlessly through a shopping mall. Forever.

And that is why admitting to liking them is like admitting addiction to, erm, relentlessly upbeat, chest beating, mid 1980s disco pop. Now cry into your hands. Do it.
 
When the tears dry – probably on some ironic sweatband – you can console your lost soul by singing along to ‘Song Away’ and happily fall into a saccharine trance. The whole set at Koko is essentially a prom scene from Teen Wolf or a chase sequence in Ferris Buller’s Day Off. It is not the sort of thing you should ever commit to paper or spend hours analysing. Do not expect weighty tombs on the cultural significance of Hockey or bands in 2030 uttering their name in order to gain reverence.
 
Still, who wants that anyway? Clearly nobody here. We are united in our guilty pleasure. It is irrepressible and, if you can switch off the repeated inner monologue chastising your descent into the cultural abyss, it is a winning formula.

Even the one where they reference 2002 as if it were some long lost ‘golden age’ from a different millennia is brilliant: ‘Wanna Be Black’’s bleepy synths and a chorus, is like having a merry breakdown to Miami Vice.
 
Yet the more you think about it, the worse it gets. So don’t. Hockey: an unthinkable, great band.