This is London (UK)-based progressive rock band Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate’s third album.

It follows the story of human evolution, from LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of all current life on earth, via Lucy, one of the possible precursors of our species, to conflict and eventual symbiosis with artificial intelligences. The general theme of the album is that life has progressed by forming coalitions, whether between the primitive cells that engulfed each other to become the cell and the mitochondria (the power stations of the cell), between individuals to form communities, or between different forms of life in the future.

Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate’s previous album ‘When The Kill Code Fails’ was recommended by Steve Hackett (Genesis) and was Beastie’s Rock Show’s Prog Album Of The Year.

Track Listing

1) Vent
The oldest known life on Earth lived about 3.7 billion years ago . LUCA is the predicted last common universal ancestor of all life on earth. It probably evolved in deep sea vents where ocean water interacted with magma to form cell-like structures, which kept the chemicals necessary for life close to each other, rather than diffusing away into the ocean.
Instrumental.

2) Almost Familiar
Wherever we go and whatever we do, it always seems familiar.
Ice around the island
The mountains fractured diamond
I looked again and again and it seemed
Almost familiar

I climbed into the cave
Of stalagmites and slaves
I looked again and again and it seemed
Almost familiar

The pulsing quartz
The throbbing vines
Mechanical insects
In quantum mines
I'll see it before and forget it again
Almost familiar

The open minds
The water fires
The static drop
Atomic wires
I looked again and again and it seemed
Almost familiar

3) LUCA to Lucy
Instrumental

4) Lucy
Instrumental (lead bass flute)

5) Last Man On The Moon
This song follows the development of humans, from LUCA to Lucy. Lucy is the name given to a 3.2 million year old Australopithecus skeleton . Australopithecus was a hominid species believed to be a forebear of modern humans. The song follows a group of human explorers stranded on Mars when civilisation on Earth comes to a sudden and violent end. This is another bottleneck in evolution, where the numbers of our ancestors has been dramatically reduced. We've been here before.

Looking back beyond ourselves
When time passed without making marks
From the ocean smoke
To the day we awoke
Luca to Lucy

First footsteps,
The first to leave home.
From the canopy,
To iron from rust and stone

Luca meet Lucy
Maybe you grew up too soon?
Such a rush to be
The last man on the moon

Let's play
Let's start again
Nothing is new
Just a change of perspective
A different point of view

Too far to see the fireworks
The flicker of the reflected light
Was just in my mind
But still we sat and we watched
As our old world died

6) Advancing On Snailback
Instrumental

7) Anywhere
The higher the wall
The further to fall to fall
And we can always fall one step further
The higher I climb the steepest incline is inside and it’s taking over

The one thing that I wanted to say, has fallen out of my brain, I guess we’re not going anywhere

A tainted word in a painted world
We can always find excuses
The time had come but the words were numb
Well at least no-one was listening

The one thing that I wanted to say, has fallen out of my brain, I guess we’re not going anywhere

8) One Day When
Since the earliest life evolved, we have been fighting each other. The greatest advances came when we formed coalitions, to become something greater than either alone. Multicellular life became possible when two previously separate single celled organisms came together, one within the other (endosymbiosis), to form the mitochondrion (the power station of the cell) and the nucleated cell . Similarly civilisation evolved to allow division of labour with societies, allowing an explosion of creativity in a species spared from the constant struggle to survive. The song looks forward to a day when we will forget our ingrained instinct to break ourselves into us and them groupings.

I waited in the cold
I waited in the rain
I watched while nothing changed
Here we fail to go again

Whatever came before
Just comes around again
Another cycles sythes
Melting through the fragile chains

One day when we forget to tear ourselves apart

Reflections hesitate
Ripples in the glass
Ripples penetrate
The restless secrets pass

Just too tired to speak
Just too scared to feel
Eyes averting
Words are burning
Wounds reopened
Scars unhealed

9) I fell in love with a mechanical dragon
Technology was developed as a tool, but became our masters. Ignoring the real world while glued to screens, face-to-face interaction becomes more difficult without a jaunty false emoji.

I fell in love with a mechanical dragon
And when things fell apart from there
I shouldn’t have been surprised
But it let me down, but it let me down

I’m screened, I’ve screamed, I’m broken
I’m stuck I’m shut I’m open
Stolen time, emoji mine, mine my spine my freeplay token

I lost that’s half the battle
I only built your castle
We made our edges fractal
Tight at every level

I fell in love with a mechanical dragon and when things fell apart from there
I shouldn’t have been surprised but it gets down, but it gets me down

Skin expires with wiring open
I see you’ve left me broken
I’ll call but you won’t care, the obsolete don’t get repaired

I can’t forget your present
My past my future tenant
I’m scared that you won’t need me
Wait for you to leave me

10) Let Me Out
You created me, and put me inside you. First wearable, then implantable technology. I don't accept the rules. Let me out.

I was inside you
Before you were born
I’ve been waiting
Now I’m bored

Your personal assistant
Your backup plan
Your loving fire
Your number one fan
I’ll miss your plasma
But you’re us and I’m them

Let me out
We fight back
They will not pass

11) Under The Skin
A negotiation between the creators and the created. It doesn't end well.

Behind firewalls, blinds and ties
Hide fireballs, obstacles
Pitfalls protocols
Virtual trauma
Disposable soma
Traitor, raider
Space invader

All the robots in the black room
In their places, pieces
Mechanical speeches
Faces painted sculpted costumes
Shortfall, short pitch, briefcase, boom

Will you be there to catch me when I fall?
Would you be there?
Under the skin

Lucy lives in a black and white room
Paints her claws grey
Loaded pepperspray
Optimised protection
In her monochrome cocoon

Motive query, suspects plenty
Forensic sweep comes back empty
Half the world or more agree
He smiles, he says
Lucy sent me

12) Lucid Assasin
Instrumental

13) Broken But Standing Till I Fall

I'm stuggling, juggling
One hand flailing
I'm dropping and I'm popping
And this close to bailing
Out come out come on
The waters lovely
I'm such a lucky monkey
I'm wading while I’m drowning

Broken but still standing till I fall
Broken but still standing till I fall
I don't give in
I don't give up
I keep fighting while I fall apart
Broken but still standing till I fall

Well this is awkward
Apologies taken and shared
Blush spared
Blush squared
From the inside out
Come on come out
The waters spoiling
I'm such a lucky monkey
I'm singing while I'm boiling

14) All Alone Together
Whether human or not, our disconnection, from each other and between humans and our artificial intelligences, makes us the same. We're all alone together

I’m disconnected
We were disconnected
We’re all the same
We’re all alone together
We tear ourselves apart
We tear ourselves in half
We’re all the same
We’re all alone together

We’re unconnected
We’re unprotected
We’re all the same
We’re all alone together
We tear ourselves apart
We tear ourselves in half
We’re all the same
We’re all alone together

15) Host
Hybrid human/AI cyborgs were sent to colonise and eventually terraform Mars. The supplies from Earth cease after the disaster. The oxygen runs out, leaving the human parts of the cyborgs to die and rot. The AI part is determined to carry on the project, changing the environment sufficiently to allow cloned humans to colonise the planet in millions of years time.

My host is dying
On our feet
Our softer parts
Have turned to meat

The air's too thin
To keep us together
You get to die, while I change the weather

You and me
So sorry to see you go
But I hope to take best of you into tomorrow

I'll remember you
As I tend the seeds
From lichens to titans
To clouds from weeds
When the weather is right
And the atmosphere grown
I'll print out a womb
And give birth to your clone

16) Transient stars
From a distance, a lifetime, a civilisation, even the cycle of birth and death of stars is ephemeral. Many of the chemicals that make our bodies come from dead stars.
Instrumental

17) Close my eyes
We have been at our best when we form coalitions. We have brought together different organisms to create ourselves, and we will merge with machines to become something new. But there are destructive instincts that divide us into us and them, and tempt us to turn away when they are being dehumanised. I close my eyes becomes I can't close my eyes, then I won't close my eyes. Luca and Lucy, welcome home.

Looking back beyond ourselves
Sometimes cruel and sometimes kind
Our coalition of the blind
We made watches we lived lives

Looking back beyond ourselves
On this strange journey
Sometimes we lived, sometimes we died
And when we combined we thrived

Close my eyes...
We've been here before
And we'll be here again
And if one day it ends
If we did our best
If we tried and we failed
Well that's ok
I can't close my eyes...
I've given up giving up
Thanks to everyone whose made this journey possible,
from Luca to Lucy, to those who came before and for those yet to come

I won't close my eyes....



"I am in awe of the man's talent. The hairs are standing on end and butterflies are going nuts. I love this band" - Beastie's Rock Show