Album Review: The Happy Hollows – Spells

By Travis Woods

Release Date:  10.6.09

Label:  Self-released

As perfect a debut for the band as one can imagine, the Happy Hollows’ full-length debut, Spells, casts exactly that–a series of aural spells–as it deftly captures the band’s wild-eyed artpunk spirit with a song cycle so flawless it resembles a career-capping best-of rather than a well-sequenced album.  Even more impressive is that with one record (and on their first one, no less) the Hollows have issued a definitive artistic statement–this is the kind of all-or-nothing album that holds within it everything that the band is, and what is so wonderful about them.

And, like all excellent debuts should, it’s a disc that, despite pushing the 50-minute mark, wastes no time in laying out both the Hollows’ influences along with their own unique sonic topography, as the first three tracks alone constitute a roadmap for the band’s style and the album’s remainder: the opener “Faces” introduces the band’s rhythm-heavy take on straight-ahead rock ‘n roll, full of discordant slash-and-burn guitar riffage, a sinuous bassline, and Sarah Negahdari’s simultaneously sensuous and bracingly violent vocals; the second song, “Death to Vivek Kemp” is a wonderfully Frankenstein’d greatest-hits of the band’s best sugar-pop moments from “My Wet Tongue” to “Monster Room,” all gushing melodies and ringing guitars; and the shrieking “Silver” is the Happy Hollows at their most noise-damaged and punkish, a monolithic slab of vivid audio vivisection that traces a lineage from Sonic Youth to the Pixies to jet turbines.

Elsewhere, the band gathers their best material over the past two years and releases one potential ‘best song’ after another, from familiar fan favorites (the finger-tapped kinetics of “Lieutenant,” the near-perfect singalong anthem “DeLorean,” the raw-nerve bloodlust and witty band narrative of “Tambourine”) to newer tracks (the yo-yo’d, swinging dynamics of “Father Time,” the synth-driven hooks and menace of “High Wire,” and the album’s most beautiful moment, the moody and string-laced “Turtle and Hare”).  And while one can deride about the album’s lengthy running time, an hour’s worth of the Happy Hollows’ best here seems entirely appropriate–Spells carries with it a do-or-die desperation in the best possible meaning of the word; it’s a record that sounds like the band wrenched the very best of themselves onto disc as if this would be their one and only shot.  And it’s that sense of immediacy and feverishness allows Spells to capture and define its band to their rollicking, joyous core, and is nothing short of sonic enchantment.  Spells, indeed.

Stream “High Wire”

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October 7, 2009 | Filed Under Album Reviews, New Local Music in 2009 

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