Hum
Downward Is Heavenward
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Hum
Downward Is Heavenward
RCA, 1998
RiYL: Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, Swervedriver's Mezcal Head, Seam's The Problem With Me |
But guitar rock has butted up against a proverbial brick wall in the past few years, as uninspired "modern rock" bands have packaged and sold schmaltzy songwriting to a listening public who doesn't seem to care.
Hum's double-barreled guitar attack isn't necessarily the antidote for alternative music's many woes. Still, the band's sonic magnificence serves to counteract some songwriting missteps that mar an otherwise impressive album. If nothing else, Hum sounds incredible.
And as Downward demonstrates even better than 1995's major-label debut You'd Prefer An Astronaut, Hum doesn't have to rely solely on noise and/or volume to get its point across. "Ms. Lazarus," a remake of a previously released b-side, is the perfect marriage of noise and effects to an absolutely beautiful song. Lush, melodic guitar lines churn and burn for a single verse before Tim Lash stomps on his distortion pedal to kick the song into outer space. Matt Talbott's clear, smooth vocals swirl and swoon as his bandmates rock the fuck out. Simply amazing.
"If You Are To Bloom" is similarly inspiring, as guitars crunch for the song's first half and then bounce sweetly while Talbott sings "I'd like to see us together." "Green To Me" wouldn't sound out of place on a Pumpkins record, sporting guitars that rev and shred. Talbott's vocals are sucked into a vortex of echo, joined by random muttering in both ears as the song runs its course.
Swirly album opener "Isle Of The Cheetah" also bears some similarities to the Pumpkins' type of songwriting, exercising plenty of guitar know-how during the course of nearly seven minutes. The first single, "Comin' Home," is one of the most abrasive songs here, grating power chords and Talbott's screamed/sung chorus in a concise 2 1/2 minutes.
But noise and distortion are too often used to obscure whatever fragment of a song lies underneath. Unfortunately, Hum's deliberate songwriting is often at odds with the constant use of sonic trickery, rendering many of these lengthy numbers (average length: 5 minutes, 20 seconds) more than a little monotonous. Ultimately, Hum tries too hard to make each song more ornate than the one before.
"Afternoon With The Axolotls" (a line from which serves as the album's title) begins with a minute of low-key, dreamy guitar work, but too predictably, on comes the distortion pedal immediately thereafter. Some five minutes later, the song has traveled into a stoned-out interlude and then back through the heavy distortion but hasn't actually accomplished anything along the way.
The intro of the overlong "Dreamboat" recalls early '80s loud rock, but the band's failure to carry this theme throughout the whole song -- each verse is lathered with a different effect than the next -- deflates what could have been the most high-voltage cut on the whole record.
Downward Is Heavenward features some of the most satisfying guitar sounds in recent memory and a handful of truly memorable songs. But in the end, Hum's decision to live and die by distortion and effects exposes its songwriting as decidedly average.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"