Chicago trio The Hecks have been at it since 2012, starting out as the duo of guitarist Andy Mosiman & Zach Hebert. The band drafted guitarist Dave Vettraino into the fold, a recording engineer who was recording the band\’s s/t debut (Trouble In Mind, 2016) & ended up joining the band In 2017. The band\’s journey to the end result of \”My Star\” – their second album – has taken them three years. After recording an initial version of the album in 2017, The Hecks started gigging with new fourth member & keyboardist Jeff Graupner, whose synthesized squiggles added some welcome heft & swagger to the band\’s tunes. After reworking & rearranging much of the new material to accommodate Graupner, the band scrapped the recordings & rebuilt them from the ground up, incorporating Graupner\’s skills at the keys. The results speak for themselves, as \”My Star\” is a gigantic leap forward for the band, absorbing everything from \”Manscape\”-era Wire to Paisley Park nu-funk to abstract new wave & art rock plucked straight from the Cold Storage playbook. Much of \”My Star\”s ten tracks are designed to bewilder; the production is intentionally disorienting, with the mix tipped toward the treble, alternating from sparse to confoundingly dense at times, but never at a disservice to the songs themselves. Opener \”Zipper\”s intertwining guitar jabs & synth lines herk & jerk so rapidly it\’s liable to break your neck, while lead track \”So 4 Real\”s neon-laced dayglo soul ratchets up the mutant funk throb so tightly that the lilting, melodic guitar break at the chorus is a welcome dose of ear-candy. \”Heat Wave\” dials it back, reveling in romantic washes of synth and flange & it\’s yearning refrain of \”It\’s tearing me apart, ripping out my heart again\”; a captivating, slow burning ballad unlike anything the band has done before. Meanwhile album closer (and title track) \”My Star\” is so cinematic, it feels like the lost end credits scene to a heartfelt teen drama, with it\’s end coda taking up the bulk of the song\’s near-eight minute run time. \”My Star\” is designed to make you move, you just have to let it.