From their EPK, "This year, HEDRA signed to Devils Clause Records, and are now braced to deliver their much-awaited new EP, "The Pecking Order." The lyrical themes and focus of the record were greatly influenced by the government's handling of the recent pandemic, and the animalistic ways in which Boris Johnson dealt with the crisis. Vocalist Jim goes on to explore the similarities between human and animal relationships, and this resonates strongly throughout the record." The album has six songs.

"Jackdaw" is the first. We are met with a heavy riff out of the gates. The clean vocals are not too great, but the harsh ones are decent. It sounds more like Groove or Alternative Metal to me, but that is neither here nor there. The heavier parts of the song are better than the clean parts in my opinion. "Stolen" is another heavier offering where, again, the harsh vocals are better than the cleans. The cleans just sound uninspired, almost as if the vocalist is going through the motions. The riffs are fairly uninspired as well. "Suchi" is a bit longer. It's a slower moving song with clean vocal harmonies, but a lagging effect comes through, as if the song was constantly trying to catch up.

"Avismogi" is another slow song, and two in a row are not helping the album get off the ground at all. It is going from bad to worse so far. This is fairly painful song to listen to, and the longing effects don't help. "Storm Clouds" is another lumbering song, but at least there are depressive background elements to steer it more towards where it should be. "Head Held High" closes the album. It's unfortunately much of the same, although the clean guitars tones are a bit more interesting. Pacing, pacing, pacing is the issue with the album. It's too slow and it drags on mercilessly. There is no energy to the music, which isn't necessary, as long as you commit to that style of music. It seems that the band hasn't fully committed to anything. This was a pretty big miss, and at the risk of unfairly roasting the band, I will stop commenting.