(Apologies for the tardiness in uploading reviews. Have been going through medical, name-change, and redesign complications but should be returning to a relatively consistent upload schedule soon.)
It seems the case that with every Head & the Heart release I’ve got to defend more and more liking them. It seems that, for me, my fondness for them stems mainly from experience and nostalgia: Specifically, formative Bildungsroman moments I have come to associate with some of the core aspects of my identity. The band’s first, self-titled 2011 album has become, for me, a lens through which I view most of my high school experiences; its stripped-down, modest yet earworm-catchy melodies evoked Cranberries-esque notions of childhood and growing up in the midst of the unforgiving maw of an addictive entertainment–focused society (Animal Collective probably summarizes it best: “And winter’s love, where could she be?” / “She’s warming in my pocket”.)
And, with a name like The Head and the Heart, how could the album not do exactly this?
But, inevitably (and, almost, predictably), their style began to devolve into something more formulaic, especially with their follow-up 2013 LP Let’s Be Still, which, while still upholding the band’s original nigh-storytelling approach to songwriting, began to inch toward Billboard 200–core, slowly rendering them noise against the background of every other band that wants to make an impact in the industry. Their third, 2016 album, Signs of Light, threw all of those remaining scraps of what the band used to be out the window (similarly, some might argue, to the Arcade Fire song of the same name, off an album that worked largely to the same effect). It seemed The Head and the Heart was near-unrecoverable.
And, compared to that: What even is this? Is this the pinnacle of musical marketability? Almost every hook, melody, and production technique is drenched in mainstream influence (nothing against most of the mainstream, but, here, by “mainstream”, I mean “algorithmic mainstream”) to the point where the entire album just sounds like a stripped-down Post Malone project (and nothing against Post Malone—just more of that “algorithmic mainstream” sentiment).
The vocals—unclear whether they’re autotuned—grate to a degree that distracts from the rest of the accompaniment to the point of utter annoyance.
Cuts like “People Need A Melody” are disheartening in that they remind strongly of the band’s more inspired days, but it soon does away with that wistful charm for Britpop drums and hungover 5th of July cousins’ house in suburban Illinois texture (“All I Need” by Kodaline, perhaps).
Much of the album subsists on this style of uncomfortable sonic mixture, notably on “Moonlight”, a predictable pop dirge that, weirdly, ventures into foggy, blurred-line fields of trap and, at times, maybe even jazz. Usually something laudable and adventurous. But for The Head and the Heart, not so much. Could they have any more blatantly exploited all existing pop tropes slash algorithms?
There’s only so much disappointment that can be expressed when something as upsetting as this was completely expected to happen.
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