Almost twenty years on from the original vinyl release, Gold Filling Records are pleased to announce the major digital release event and story of the year so far that is the re-discovery of  “Seventh Sense”, the debut album by Scottish guitar band The Hucksters. In 1988 Rocket 5 released “Seventh Sense” on vinyl LP. Only 1000 copies of the album were ever pressed and the album has now become a much sought after collector’s item. On release the album received, much like Chilton and co., great critical acclaim from the UK music press including an “album of the month” in  Music Week (that’s like an Uncut for the eighties kids) to follow their “single of the week” for their debut 45 ”Way of the Feeling”.

With songwriting and musician-ship at such a strong and consistently high level it’s no surprise.  Further praise arrived from as far afield as Spain, Sweden, United States and Greece (and these people don’t forget as you’ll see if you give the hucksters MySpace page a quick once-over). What happened next you may ask? Apart from some internal squabbling and controversial transfers, not too much. Why? Who knows? Maybe a classic album like this just needed some time to mature. Maybe it came out at the wrong time. Maybe it was too much of its time, or, more likely, not enough of its time.

When you listen to “seventh sense” today, take opener “changing time” for instance, you will hear not only one of the best introductory couple of bars to any song in the history of rock’n’roll, but the sound of a band NOW. If I hadn’t already told you the release date you would never have guessed that it was kicking the arse off twenty years old. One things for sure though, for an album to be so criminally ignored someone had to pay and they did, only it was the band.  Although no-one will ever say that the Hucksters sound like the Stones, if you listen to the duel Telecaster guitar playing of Boyd Pollock and Alan Hatton on tracks such as “Western City Sky” and “ Strange Things Happen” you could easily be reminded of the “ancient art of weaving” held so close to dear ol’ Keefs heart. Listening to “Shore to Shore” the only comparison to be made is that of a kind of inverse, fully realised and totally authentic concept of what the Byrds version of “Wild Mountain Time” was hinting at. This is no view from Laurel Canyon. In “Shore to Shore” you can smell the heather.