Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate Explore Identity, Illness and Hope on ‘Parallel Lives’

London-based duo Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate return with their ninth album, Parallel Lives, a deeply personal record shaped by questions of identity, mental health and the invisible struggles people carry.

Formed by Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland, the band are known for combining progressive and alternative rock with classical, minimalist and electronic elements. Their music often draws upon science, history and speculative fiction, earning them a reputation for creating records that reward close attention. Hard Rock Hell magazine previously described them as the “unlikely stars who stole the show”.

While Parallel Lives continues the duo’s interest in science fiction and literature, its emotional foundations lie much closer to home. During the album’s development, Galloway was diagnosed with a rare, incurable and progressive neurodegenerative retinal condition, which is gradually causing visual loss and distortion.

Having already experienced medical problems that forced him to leave his previous career, music had become an important way for Galloway to remain creatively active. The new diagnosis unsettled that balance, affecting his sense of identity and how he imagined the future. Even when the condition was not being addressed consciously, its impact began to find its way into the album.

That unease can be heard across Parallel Lives. Opening track ‘My Blistering Mind’ is written from the perspective of someone struggling with their mental health. Its reference to a “splintering mind” describes the painful, jagged edges of thought rather than a particular diagnosis, capturing the discomfort of living inside a mind that does not always feel safe.

‘The Mandatory Prize’ turns its attention towards social expectations. The song is voiced by an authority figure informing someone that they must accept a role they never chose and should appear grateful for it. Influenced by a Philip K. Dick short story, it presents an exaggerated but recognisable picture of social masking and the pressure to perform an acceptable version of oneself.

Instrumental track ‘Never Really Felt Like Home’ offers a more melancholic moment, with Kathryn Thomas contributing flute, bass flute and piccolo. Her playing adds another texture to an album where words are not always needed to express feelings of distance or displacement.

Philip K. Dick’s work provides further inspiration on ‘Smile, Smile, Smile’. The song takes its lead from the 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, in which celebrity Jason Taverner wakes to discover that nobody remembers him. Once protected by fame and privilege, he suddenly becomes an undocumented person living under the constant threat of a forced labour camp. The story’s shifting identity and loss of status sit naturally alongside the album’s wider concerns.

Following the instrumental ‘Intermission’, the title track considers how people can slowly move apart without either side making a conscious decision to do so. Whether between individuals or across society, ‘Parallel Lives’ reflects on the quiet distance that forms when lives continue alongside one another without truly connecting. Thomas joins Galloway on vocals for the track.

‘Eversion’, inspired by the Alastair Reynolds novel of the same name, returns to themes of masking and unstable identity. Its story follows a surgeon repeatedly experiencing similar events across different historical periods, raising questions about what remains when the surrounding world keeps changing.

The instrumental ‘Pretty Blue Fox’ takes its name from a game-playing group in Philip K. Dick’s 1963 novel The Game-Players of Titan, while ‘Dropping the Mask’ provides another wordless chapter in the record.

Among the album’s most personal songs is ‘Just Another Thing’, the only track written specifically in response to Galloway’s diagnosis. It explores the gap between appearing able to cope with whatever life brings and the much more complicated reality beneath that surface. It is a restrained acknowledgement that resilience can sometimes become another performance.

After spending much of the album with uncertainty, isolation and emotional strain, Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate close with a note of hope. ‘Just Hold On (Pts 1 and 2)’ began as a classical composition for choir before gradually developing into the album’s final song. As the choir fades, a guitar solo emerges, followed by the vocals and remaining instrumentation.

The closing track feels like one person encouraging another, although it could just as easily represent someone trying to reassure themselves. Its message is simple but important: it is not too late to embrace life. Many struggles remain unseen, and for those finding their way through them, simply holding on can be an achievement worth recognising.

Parallel Lives does not attempt to offer easy answers. Instead, it brings together personal experience, literary ideas and the band’s wide-ranging musical approach to examine what happens when identity begins to shift. The result is an album about coping, masking and drifting apart, but also about the possibility of continuing, even when the path ahead looks different from the one previously imagined.