We’ve got no idea what’s going on with HURTS anymore. So, when they emerged, rising from the ashes of Daggers, with the Wonderful Life single it was like a shining beacon of hope for enigmatic British SynthPop. A mantle they more than lived up to with their début album Happiness. All their tongue-in-cheek Berlin posturing and bombastic, emotional dark SynthPop went out the window, however, with their sophomore album cycle. Exile, and it’s accompanying singles and live shows, was Rock posturing at it’s worse. Clichéd Electro-Rock and tired Goth imagery practically ruined everything that went before it. Once we saw Theo high-kick and attempt to head bang his slicked back hair onstage, without a hint of irony, we knew it was all over for our love of HURTS. And then this happened. From no-where HURTS have released a brand new single, presumably the first from their forthcoming third album. It’s called Some Kind Of Heaven and it’s nothing like Exile whatsoever; and it’s nothing like Happiness either.
Wielding a strong 90s Indie vibe, Some Kind Of Heaven is all shuffling Indie breaks, big hooks and sing-along vocals. Anthemic in that particular way that HURTS do best, Some Kind Of Heaven doesn’t hark back to the brooding SynthPop for their first record, but eschews the chugging guitar and hackneyed edginess of the second. It’s an entirely new beats and one that, if they keep up sounding like this, bodes well for the forthcoming record. It’s majestic, catchy, and passionate as we’d expect from pre-Exile HURTS, but more than anything there is a return to that sense of fun too. We are tentatively, nervously, hopeful for the future of HURTS.
♫ HURTS – Some Kind Of Heaven
HURTS’ Some Kind Of Heaven is out now.
Buy HURTS’ music from:
electronic rumors 
I didn’t hate the previous HURTS LP, I thought it had some good songs on it. But I do like this new single/new direction for the group. It has a sort of “Crystal” era New Order vibe to it.