Power trio The Happy Hollows are a band that sound as if they found a time machine and stumbled into the 21st century. Their distorted spiky songs sound as if they were covered in flannel and Doc Martens and sent into the year 2010 to remind people how this whole indie rock thing started.
Their album, Spells, sounds as if Sonic Youth, Lush and Echobelly were held up at gun point and forced to record a few songs for posterity sake. Spells is proper indie that's angular, noisy, rough, and angsty in all the right places. Think of it as 90's alt-rock in that quiet loud sort of way that made the Pixies a household name. This is a band that will lull you to sleep one second and then blow your eardrums clear out of your skull the next. Picture yourself jumping on your little brothers bed for 20 minutes while he's asleep and you can kind of picture what The Happy Hollows are about.
Spells is a wonderfully noisy treat that features the best alternative pop songs you've not heard since 1996. The playful attitude between the three members (Sarah, Charlie, Chris), and their ability to shift from chaotic to controlled in the span of a riff only further serves to make the songs sound so seductive. "Liutenant," is a prime example of how this band does the quiet loud thing so well and has fun doing it; the song goes in twenty three directions at once and its as if the band is trapped in some sort of surreal Benny Hill chase scene as they play this song.
The Happy Hollows are quirky, slightly obnoxious but really rather good. Spells is a nostalgic listen that will remind you of how excited you were when you bought your first Sonic Youth record and thought that Doc Martens were the most comfortable shoes on the planet. A blast from the past that's from today, it's like listening to a quantum mechanics paradox that sounds good.
No comments:
Post a Comment