REVIEW: The Hang Ups, Second Story (Restless)
- Wes Long
Take a once wistful harmony saturated pop band, add a front man busily digesting Kinks vinyl and playing his new extra-"squonky" Epiphone Riviera guitar, throw in a pair of producers whose last collaborations resulted in two of the better recordings of the '80s and you've got the Hang Ups latest effort, Second Story.
In 1997, the Hang Ups released So We Go, an amazing collection of Carpenter-pretty, harmonious pop tunes that somehow went largely unnoticed by everyone with ears. It's a damn shame that this highly polished recording wasn't chatted up to the heavens and back; it's that good. I'm talking hair standing up on the back of your neck good. Once perfectly bittersweet songs like "Top of Morning," "So We Go," "Clouds" and "Sweet Tooth" penetrate your skull, no matter how thick it may be, you'll soon discover yourself humming them through a mouth stuck in permanent idiot grin.
Two years removed from that confectionery treat is the Minneapolis band's Second Story, their third full length CD, enlisting the formidable producing talents of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon. Hey, anyone remember the last time these guys worked together on a full-length album? Ever hear of REM? They last joined forces aiding Stipe and company with Murmur and Reckoning, arguably the band's two best recordings. Second Story was quickly put together at Easter's North Carolina farmhouse/studio, an abrupt detour from the full year spent meticulously carving So We Go, resulting in a somewhat ragged and far edgier sound than their wonderfully saccharine sweet prior effort.
The Hang Ups harmonies appear all the lovelier surrounded by white-knuckle, bar room, Pixie-like riffs; like cracking open a geode and marveling at its shiny innards. Easter and Dixon have infused in this band a newfound sense of urgency, an immediacy that may deliver them from obscurity. Teetering somewhere between jangling breezy self-reflective pop and compelling fisticuffs bravado, the Hang Ups' Second Story is a balancing act worth catching.
