Hotpipes

Hotpipes

(Liquid Panda)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

Hotpipes starts out with a slightly New Wave, Talking Heads-meets-Pavement energy, but then kind of sweetly confuses you with a strange amalgamation of Fugazi / Hot Hot Heat kind of dynamics. Perhaps those two bands don’t match at all in your mind, and they don’t really in mine, either, but here on songs like “The Late Riser” and “Much Too,” it actually kind of makes sense. There are also indie rock and roll hints of bands like The Walkmen, mostly through the interplay of the drums and vocals—that nasally sing-song whine in the voice and the snare happy march hits of the drum kit. It’s rough around the edges and ready to fall apart at almost every chorus, but somehow it all holds together.

There are moments when the band breaks out into strange lo-fi movements that are almost like crazy pirate songs or sea shanties as sung by someone who’s never been near the ocean, let alone gone on journeys as a pirate. There is something that you kind of have to respect, though, about a band that can manage to move from Talking Heads to Pirates, and then over to a mellow piano ballad with hints of some rock ‘n’ roll opera hiding in the wings. Showtunes for hipsters scattered amongst the no wave ruins of random pop songs. These are fun songs that revel in the simplicity and joy of just playing music. The whine and twang moves against energy and noise, and while you can’t always understand what the songs are about, you can still feel where they are going.