HECTORINA by HECTORINA

The best local band is Hectorina. I'll say it all day long. That new album (Hectorina) — I've had it for about a year because they gave me an advance listen. I listen to it at least twice a week. It's awesome. It's got less psychedelic stuff than previous albums, but — two years ago they were the Bee Gees for a set at the Milestone on Halloween and they've fallen into an old-school style — it's got more soul now. Their album Collywobble is one of my favorite albums ever — by any band.
--- Johnathan Hughes, Owner of The Milestone Club / Creative Loafing (2015)

Local indie-rock trio Hectorina continues to be one of the area's most dynamic acts and its new, self-titled studio album solidifies that statement. From the opening, jangly, falsetto-laden "I Want to Be Well" to the Lennon-esque screaming of "I Traded My Gun for a Butterfly Net" to the all-over-the-map schizophrenia of "I Picked Up a Black Snake and I Put it Down," the album's 11 tracks are a great snapshot of where the band is today. Hectorina's confidence in experimentation and melody — or lack thereof — is a tribute to the trio's slow-but-steady development in less than four years. Having other releases — two full length and two EPs — this album shows the band's finely crafted approach with fantastic results. Perhaps singer-guitarist Dylan Gilbert is a bit over-ambitious — the band has recorded a rock opera already — but his range of abilities and styles come through in all of the varied songwriting. His vocals can convey the right tone — sweetly or sharply; soft and loud; relaxed and frustrated. The band — bassist Zach Jordan and drummer John Harrell III — isn't afraid to experiment with time signatures or tones — check the cacophony of noises on "I'm a Pretty Mean Hoofer Buddy." "Slave" should be on radio today with its retro soul verses and pop-rock chorus. They can change styles at the drop of a hat and make it work — well. Of course, none of this even takes into consideration the band's talents in the live setting, but that's another review for another time. Daniel Hodges of Old House Studios and Dave Harris of Studio B Mastering should also get some of the credit for the album's sonic quality, as well. It's a fine piece of craftsmanship and while Hectorina requires more than one listen to make your way through the layers, it's worth it. Hectorina has put together one of the year's best local releases.
--- Jeff Hahne / Creative Loafing (2015)

During the past several years, Hectorina has often performed its 2011 debut in its entirety, transforming the ridiculous and exuberant space-rock opera Collywobble into an equally outlandish stage production. The band's new self-titled effort shows Hectorina to be better when keeping things simple. Blitzing through Bowie-esque weirdness with garage rock intensity, it's Hectorina's most striking release to date. ----- Jordan Lawrence / INDY Week (2015)

Their previous work is chaotic, fractured, ecstatic, and mind-bending; this track (“Inside Your Heart”) sands down some of the eccentric flair and reveals the ecstatic rock band at their core. (The fact that their beating heart sounds like Prince is perfect.) Everybody clap your hands.
--- Stephen Carradini / Independent Clauses (2015)

Theatrical in the vein of Collywobble, but instantly more mature in execution, it’s easy to feel the greater heart bleeding throughout Hectorina’s newly released self-titled album. The album is creeping and mysterious at times, spiraling out of control in a frenzied plunge before it’s reeled back in with David Lynchesque artfully cunning control. Singing of butcher knives and marriage, the album has a deep and dark blue tone. Guitarist/Vocalist Dylan Gilbert drawls Southern Baptist hellfire with devilish acceleration, matched only by John Harrell III’s wild drumming. Zachary Charles Jordan’s bass is the conscience mediator that subdues the Dionysus hysteria and wickedly catchy choruses. The album comes off darkened with heart wrenching lovestruck memories of blissful champagne turned stale and sour. It has some immediate singles on it, such as “Slave,” “I’m a Pretty Mean Hoofer Buddy” (where Harrell provides a fun resurrection of the cowbell), and “Inside of Your Heart.” However, the last song on the album pulls the tender heartstrings most; “Maybe It’s For The Best” is a bluesy transcendence track of finally letting an unfortunately hopeless love out of your life for the sake of each’s sanity. Hectorina’s new music video, filmed and directed by Blake Raynor, is a visual representation of the anxieties that tend to plague the creative mind. The video opens with a melodic plea from Gilbert’s vocals and a tattered sign with the words “Share Your Talent” propped up and forgotten in an abandoned landscape. Multiple dancers reach and expand their arms in frustration and whirl frantically in an all-or-nothing fashion. This dancing mirrors the overwhelming thought of an individual’s life being theirs alone; the tripping and spinning down the solitary road of destiny and happenstance to find and express oneself honestly. Also noteworthy is the interaction between dancer and an eerie masked figure shrouded in mystery and allure. The masked antagonist pulls an antique game of chess out and offers it to the viewer, asking if he’d like to play along in a game of destiny. The chess game represents the unsure, and highly stressful objectives that come with following your dreams without abandon against the unknown poker face of fate. Ultimately, the video beautifully portrays the desperate dreams of the heart. For instance, a dancer dressed in red is illustrating the heart overflowing with feelings of romanticism and a desire to reach what she wants. The red dancer is the most expressive and her frustrated exasperation is mimicked in the howling appeals of Gilbert’s voice. The song has a false-stop allowing for a quick breath before plunging back into the whirlwind. The video is full of quick and imploring impulses which tumble, following the drums and guitar down a dark alley. The ending has multiple overlain silhouettes dancing freely against an expansive sunset, finally full of exaltation.
--- Shirley Griffith / CLTure (2015)

Dylan Gilbert spent his late teens and early twenties alone. Sure, he was surrounded by people when he played shows, but when the music was over and the club turned off the lights and locked the doors, he was back in his car again—one guy, one acoustic guitar, and miles to go before tomorrow's venue. It was a lonely time, and the music began to feel like lonely music. "I was really kind of sick of it," says Gilbert, now 28. "I was playing at least four shows a week, all up and down the East Coast alone." Plus, he realizes today, that he was talking himself out of his edgier ideas the whole time—he had been aiming for a Beatles or Beach Boys pop sound, but his work at the time wound up more Meet the Beatles than Magical Mystery Tour. Then, five years ago, he toured with fellow Charlotteans Zach Jordan and John Harrell III—the trio that will be playing Petra’s, Friday, Dec. 11, along with Ghost Dogs and Sam the Lion—and the three clicked. Finally, Gilbert was in the right place. For a few years they toured as Dylan Gilbert and the Over Easy Breakfast Machine, but even that put too much focus on the guy with the microphone. It was a clunky name, drummer Harrell laughs,  and they dropped it in favor of the concise, charismatic Hectorina. Finally, it was a band—no longer Gilbert's backing band, mind you, but a democratic trio. To his relief, it could finally stop being the Dylan Gilbert show; to his relief, the music got angular, complex, and unhinged, even abrasive; to his relief, Gilbert stopped making music all by himself. The story is no longer just about him, and neither is this one. Hectorina's strength is collective, after all, and it gives them the confidence to make unexpected music rich with the jagged edges Gilbert used to purposefully sand off. "Zach and John, I think they saved me creatively," he says matter-of-factly. Today, the last thing Gilbert would want to do is play it safe. Appropriately, this year's eponymous LP is a master's course in scorching, advanced post-punk—think At the Drive-in's nimble post-punk tempered by Modest Mouse's madhouse humor. It's full of u-turns, delivered with the glee of a talented band that's not showing off, but that still takes pride in its respectable chops. If the band has a motto, Harrell says with a laugh, it's "We're Hectorina. We do whatever the hell we want." "I don't mean that in a cocky, mean way, but this is a band where we don't have to run anything by anybody," he explains. "You've got an idea, let's do it." If these guys are assertive, they come about it honestly. They've worked at music, playing, practicing, and writing, but also studying it—that's how they met in the first place. The 25-year-old Harrell, who was homeschooled, started taking classes at Central Piedmont Community College when he was 15. He studied piano and music fundamentals, eventually devouring almost every music class the school offered. Harrell had grown up in a musical household—mom's a guitarist and pianist, while dad plays classical guitar—and had eventually caught the bug himself. At 12 or 13, he recalls, he suddenly became obsessed with drumming, to the point of jury-rigging a kit out of pots and pans in the family kitchen. At his next birthday—13 or 14, he can't remember which—his extended family pooled their resources to get him an entry-level drumkit. Soon he was playing Green Day songs with his guitarist brother and bassist sister; soon he was learning entire Radiohead albums. Jamming with his siblings led to playing in bands, and this was just his middle school years. By the time he started at Central Piedmont, he'd already dedicated himself to music, but also had plenty of experience analyzing it and playing with others. "That's where I met Dylan," Harrell recalls. "That's where I met Zach." Bassist Zach Jordan, 26, is headed back to work from his lunch break when he picks up the phone. He initially sounds a little tired, but it only takes a few minutes of talking about music before he audibly brightens. For him, Hectorina happened at the right time. He and Harrell had been playing together in Americana outfit Linus Van Pelt, but that band was winding down. "I remember (Gilbert) released Pangaea and he needed some backing members," Jordan recalls of Gilbert’s 2010 record. "I was just hitting my stride as far as performing live, I had that taste in my mouth and it lined up perfectly with what he needed." The initial assumption Jordan and Harrell had was that they would tour with Gilbert as hired guns and that would be that—Gilbert had released five solo records by then (plus three with high school punk band Something Jed—he started early!), and they figured they'd be learning parts. Neither knew that Gilbert was hungry for collaboration. It became obvious over the nearly two weeks of that 2010 tour, though. The three clicked—they'd been friends prior to that, but they had no idea how strong their innate musical chemistry was. The band formed and evolved quickly, organically. "We'd get booked at a lot of coffee shops and places where we didn't fit in, because we were starting to play rowdy rock 'n' roll by then," Harrell recalls. "Hectorina definitely started out as kind of a free-for-all," Jordan says. "That was kind of the ethos for awhile, establishing our universe." It was liberating, and eventually that churning, if undirected, creativity led to Jordan, Gilbert, and Harrell's fuller understanding of their chemistry—and their potential. "It's more of a thinking man's game now because we know how to play with each other," Jordan says. "It's maturing as we are maturing."If songs like "Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps," with its purposefully jarring starts and stops, are any indication, maturity has led to unapologetically idiosyncratic songwriting. On the one hand, these three like a challenge. They're interested in unpredictable, interesting music, so it's logical they'd want to compose songs with the same qualities. On the other, they're bored with the rock 'n' roll same old—there's nothing wrong with playing basic power chords and drinking beer, Gilbert says, but he looks up to artists who elevate the art. Abandoning formula, too, can make the difference in getting potential fans to stop scrolling and listen—even if it means actively trying to annoy audiences. "Living in the postmodern world, there's nothing people haven't seen," Gilbert says. "It's hard to grab people's attention." He's not talking about sales, but about connecting with listeners—this is art, Gilbert says, that he and his friends have put hard work and passion into, and he doesn't want it to simply fade into the ever-shifting morass of Facebook and Twitter feeds. Gilbert's come a long way from softening his music's jagged edges—today he actively sharpens them. "I think that's what's confusing to people, that we're this crazy, abrasive live band, but we're also nice guys," Harrell laughs. "We're not dicks, we're not just trying to be cool—we genuinely just want to play magical music. If you like it, cool." "I started gigging pretty hard when I was a senior in high school, and I never really stopped," Gilbert says. "It's a sickness, really." Counting albums that are currently available, solo and with Hectorina, he has released a dozen LPs and EPs in the past 13 years—that number balloons to 21 if you count records that are no longer available. He's thought about it. He's wondered why he does this, and he consistently comes back to the realization that he's not in it for fame or even because he necessarily enjoys writing music. It's a compulsion, he says, and he can picture himself an old man someday, on his own and writing songs for nobody. It's a satisfying vision, he says, but it's almost too comfortable—besides, it's not time for that yet. Gilbert's in a like-minded band, a group of music purists, Jordan says, making the kind of rock 'n' roll they would want to hear. "We push (the music) just enough to where it's ours and it's fresh and it's interesting, but we need it to still be from us and for us," he says. They'd rather find the limits of their—and their audience's—comfort zones, which fits the "mother bird" learning style Gilbert embraces: "You have to kick yourself out of the nest."
--- Corbie Hill / Charlotte Viewpoint (2015)

In 2013, Charlotte three-piece Hectorina released their debut Collywobble, a rock opera that developed into a full-stage play last year involving a costume designer, choreographer, the works. The theatrical rockers — guitarist Dylan Gilbert, drummer John Harrell III, and bassist Zachary Jordan — have since dropped last year’s A Thousand Jackals and this year’s self-titled LP, the latter of which Gilbert says was more focused on mood and arrangement. From the soulful, Mick Jagger-like wails of “Alright, You Win This Time, But Next Time” to the rock ‘n’ roll falsetto vocals on “I Want to be Well,” it’s clear that Hectorina is firmly rooted in R&B but with a graceful handle on rock, blues, and punk. Gilbert says it’s their most well-planned release to date. “We’ve never been afraid to be prolific,” he says. “But I think with this newest record — and to a larger extent the material we’re writing together currently — we’ve taken a more critical look at the work as it’s being developed, which has allowed the songs to mature in a more natural, less cluttered way.”
--- Kelly Rae Smith / Charleston City Paper (2015) 

Hectorina has an appeal similar to Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse. Rather than choosing between sounding pretty and abrasive, Hectorina elects to be both simultaneously. Songs like "Traded my Gun for a Butterfly Net" are perfect examples of this Frankenstein approach. Menacing, angular guitar and hoarse shouting blur seamlessly into a disco-groove chorus, while vocalist Dylan Gilbert begs, "Who's gonna love you, baby?" in a desperate, cracking falsetto.
--- Free Times (2015)

Hectorina is a three-piece of pure rock frenzy. Their live set is electrified with the vigor of youth and polished with years of experience. These dudes can play and they play loud. Their large amounts of badassery are covered in sweat and musical progressions that drop listeners off of higher and higher cliffs. Don't worry, they catch you and help you land safely; they just constantly catch you off guard Once the ride is finished you will most certainly get in line to go again.
--- Derrick J. Hines / EndsMeet.com (2015)

Charlotte trio Hectorina return, touring behind critically praised self-titled new album that takes a classic pop song delivery and deconstructs it. New material still bears a kinetic, theatrical feel but retains the pretty chaos and stark qualities from previous albums.
--- Brian Tucker / Star News (2015)

Hectorina have a chameleon of sounds on their just released self-titled third album. At some point you will hear a soulful Walkmen vibe and at others a Jack White howl. Regardless of the style, Hectorina have put together an entertaining record that plays big and gets more addicting with repeat listens.
--- The Fire Note (2015)

One of Charlotte’s best bands — yep, I said it — Hectorina is driven by the quirky songwriting style of Dylan Gilbert and his talented bandmates, bassist Zach Jordan and drummer John Harrell III. Not afraid to change time signatures in the blink of an eye or just let loose with total abandon, the band’s sonically fantastic albums are no match for the live show. These are the guys you should be paying attention to.
--- Creative Loafing (2016)

Theatrical at times, heavy and frenzied other times, Hectorina is one of the most unique bands in the Charlotte area. The tight three-piece outfit can go anywhere in a given set.
--- Charlotte Agenda (2017)

Local legends (like, actual legends) Hectorina took the stage next and, once again, proved to be the best thing about the scene. A handful of genres in one song, eccentric vocals, and melodies so hard to follow that they just work is the band's modus operandi; what's not to like? You never know what to expect from a Hectorina set, whose pop/post-punk tunes are anything but predictable. With a rock opera, several big time festivals, and Daniel Hodges expertise swimming through their heads, Hectorina has a handful of accomplishments and bucket list checks under their belts. Their self-titled release is the latest from the QC trio, but you never know what or when the band will throw at us next.
--- Shutter16 Magazine (2017)

"Charlotte’s multifaceted songwriter-producer-magician Dylan Gilbert conjures incredible music ranging from the chiming embracing / questioning pop of When Did Everything Change? (2024) to the clangorous / minimalist vision quest through the wasteland I’ll Be the Lakebed (2020)."
— Queen City Nerve (2025)

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