Thursday, December 17, 2015

Ken's Top 10 of 2015 - #2- Hop Along - Painted Shut

Hop Along's Painted Shut is the album that came out of nowhere this year and just floored me. I had heard the name Hop Along before, but until this album was released I had never actually heard them. An obsession with this album slowly blossomed all year, as I kept playing Painted Shut week after week, long after I grew tired of other releases that came out after it.

The true secret of Hop Along is Frances Quinlan's voice. In the same song she'll go from a soft, pretty, fairly standard in indie rock voice, to a more powerful screech that dances right on the line of being too pretty and too harsh. It's the bouncing between beautiful and abrasive that just sucks me in every time. Just listen to "Buddy in the Parade" and you'll see exactly what I mean. Musically, Hop Along land squarely in the 90s inflected indie rock that I'm thrilled is all the rage right now, with jangly, fuzzy guitars that seem to wander around the songs on their own. If you haven't yet, you need to listen to Painted Shut below.

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