Though it seems easy to write charming and triumphant pop anthems, Howard Hello show how that's just the problem; it seemseasy. Just as playing minimal soundscapes in the style of Tarentel(whose Kenseth Thibideau leads Howard Hello) seems like no more thanholding 2-3 note patterns for ages, attempts I've seen by less skilledpeople prove otherwise. Howard Hello succeed when they work with thetextures and avoid the hooks. On mostly instrumental songs like "FalseHope" and "And as always, Night turns into day," gorgeous analogkeyboard warmth stumbles around sparse song structures and delicatefemale backing vocal textures, creating a playful but melancholy world.The problems arrive when the lead vocals make attempts at anthemic popmusic. For the most part, they don't ironically play on tropes to showhow clever they are, but it's almost more problematic. They write popsongs as if they figured that to make the music different from the moreexperimental fare they're better known for, they need to dumb it down.Instead of focusing on intricacies, they throw down piles of half-bakedhooks that repeat ideas that were tired before they even sang them. Theseeming climax of the album, the six and a half-minute "Way To Go,"brings the problem to a whole other level. I can't decide whichpossibility is worse: did they purposefully try to create a trite"triumphant" singalong in the vein of "Freedom '90" by George Michael,or did they really think what they were doing was interesting on itsown? The completely incongruous-sounding closing track, "Ending," doesa nice job of saving them, clearing the palette with a sweet acousticmelody and wide-eyed vocals, but the pain of the previous song hasalready erased much of the nice things that started the record off.Read More
