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Forget the Elvis Costello tune, today’s feature is really just a staging post for bands that know how to cast a moody ambience over their recordings. Some are dark, awash with shade and mood lighting, while others seem to tweak the brightness of each hook they throw. You can take your pick of moods on offer here.
Hovvdy are masters of textured atmosphere. It jumps out and envelops you on their stand-out single “Jean.” I hadn’t even written a line about them when I included that release in my top 5 folk pop list for 2023. Now they’re got a whole album of similarly intriguing material on their recently-released fifth long-player, the self-titled Hovvdy. The LP has 19 songs that feature their amazing talent for conjuring a sonic warm blanket out of a mixture of instruments and dreamy vocals. Some selections are little more than evocative fragments of melody that get incorporated and developed elsewhere. “Forever Piano” is a striking 21 second piano riff that loses a bit of bite but gains melodic depth on the longer “Forever.” Other tracks range across styles but keep to the album’s over-arching sonic décor. For instance “Clean” vibes a DIY, lofi Elliot Smith feel while “Make Ya Proud” has more studio polish. But both are just different flavours of what I might call ‘rogue folk,’ if you’re prepared to envision New Order as back up players here. Other highlights for me include “Big Blue” and “Portrait,” the latter sounding very country with a vocal that rumbles like it was recorded in a big empty room.
10 years after their debut LP She Looks Like Kim fell to earth and three years since their major label debut Discover Effortless Living York’s Bull deliver a sweet sweet third installment with Engines of Honey. Everything here is similar – but different. The design is punchier, the production is brighter, but the songs are familiarly good. Even though the band is back on independent footing having left EMI they clearly retain the poise and polish they gained there. Album opener “Start a New” is a winning poppy number with a melodic skip in its step. From there it’s hooks aplenty, whether delivered as power pop as on “Head Exploder” and “Crick” or with a smoother sheen on “Sid” and “Stranger.” “Red Rooves” even vibes a bit of Bleachers to my ears. The departure tune is “Imaginary Conversations” which manages to overlay a choral vocal quality on its jaunty tune. And if you really want to see how far this band has come in a decade, check out their remake of “Jan Fin” from their first album. They really imbue the song with new life.
The new Seasonal Falls album Happy Days is a lush sonic vista, where the melodic detail and pacing choices on each of its nine tunes exhibits the care of a fine pointillist painting. Title track and opening cut “Happy Days” meanders into view, lulling us with its alluring melody. “Used To Be Fun” almost seems to skip along, picking up the pace ever so slightly. There is a McCartney-esque calibration of carefully worked out guitar motifs and vocals here. Then “Lie Down” almost breaks the album’s spell, vibing a more indie rock feel – almost. You could think of this album as different shades of the same colour, each song being distinctly different but clearly relatable to the others. It all comes down to choices on tempo and instrumentation. On this front “Girlfriend” is a masterful bit of song staging, opening with such precise restraint only to slowly add more colour and sonic depth along the way. Or listen to how the country-ish tinge to “Half Moon” lends a sense of urgency to the song. I also like how “Hey Girl” deploys ‘oh oh oh oh’s to good effect, creating an almost conventional pop tune. Should be hit single? Definitely “I Wish You All The Best” with its Neil Finn sense of low-key assurance.
Stellar Evolution is album #5 for Nashville’s Aaron Lee Tasjan, another installment in his genre-defying exploration of subtle melodic hookyness and lyrical openness. Times are tough in the American south and Tasjan gives voice to how the national right-wing war on diversity lands there with particular ferocity. As he sings on “Nightmare,” ‘I’m fearing for my life’ because ‘Mama they wanna kill me.’ The song’s relentless yet even synth backdrop effectively frames a harrowing narrative. Throughout the album Tasjan’s songs are snapshots of living amidst all a kind of social carnage. “Roll Your Windows Down” paints a joyous picture of connection that needn’t be tidy. “Bird” is a peppy track about getting up every day even if you’re going nowhere. And a host of songs here specifically capture queer alienation, like “Horror of It All.” But for caustic commentary on more explicitly political topics, see the hard-hitting “I Love America Better Than You.” Should-be hit single definitely would be “Alien Space Queen,” a boppy rumination on living with difference. But I also really like “Cry Till You’re Laughing” for its Beatlesque grandeur and just a dab of ELO. Then things close starkly with “Young,” a track that will tug at your heart with the gravity of a queer Springsteen. On Stellar Evolution Aaron Lee Tasjan offers up beautiful, heartfelt testimony to coping with and even defying America’s current ugly mood.
We’ve offered moods for many occasions so take your pick. These artist are waiting to cast their spell via the hyperlinks appearing above.
Photo courtesy zaza23 (Jessica) Flikr collection.
Poprock Record 