What The Hell Happened

A comprehensive history of the American stage of the Vietnam War.

A comprehensive history of the American stage of the Vietnam War.

It was a brave soul that first ate an oyster, or nailed a shoe on to a horse. Similarly, trying to predict what The Wildhearts would do on their first album in 10 years, 2019’s Renaissance Men, would take some courage. The only certain thing about this uniquely creative but oft-troubled band is its ability to confound. In the event, the quartet’s comeback was an earth-shifter that echoed in its amplitude the band’s 1993 debut. Continuing that rebirth, their latest mirrors both the heavily hooked songwriting of second full-length P.H.U.Q, their most commercially successful album, and the once limited edition Fishing For Luckies, an EP revered for its absolute disregard for convention.

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the "rice-bowl" system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.

Fourteen years after being cryogenically frozen as part of an experimental partnership between the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame and Dairy Queen, guitarist Billy Howerdel has been successfully reanimated. He has since reunited with his band A Perfect Circle, ready for their massively anticipated new album, "Eat the Elephant".