Is there ever a time that too much of something pleasant can be
\nbad?<\/p>\n
I don’t refer to OD’ing on such culinary wonders as Ben &
\nJerry’s Phish Food ice cream or Old Style; I refer to the music of
\nBelgium’s Hooverphonic. Their third album,
\nBlue Wonder Powder Milk<\/i>, has some powerful moments on it,
\nbut in the end becomes too repetitive for its own good.<\/p>\n
With the lead vocals shared by Geike Arnaert and Alex Callier,
\nHooverphonic inject an almost chant-like atmosphere to their
\nriff-based songs. (Rounding out the band are keyboardist Frank
\nDuchene and guitarist Raymond Geerts.) The opening track
\n“Battersea” provides an early glimpse into a different world of pop
\nmusic, one that quickly reminded me of Iceland’s Gus Gus. The songs
\naren’t afraid to mix frantic drum fills with melodic string
\narrangements – what is surprising is that such a combination works
\nso well.<\/p>\n
For the first portion of the album, tracks like “Club
\nMontepulciano” (the album’s first single), “Eden” and “Dictionary”
\ncontinue to thrill the listener and cause them to marvel at the
\nband’s work. However, this proves to be the band’s curse as well;
\nas
\nBlue Wonder Powder Milk<\/i> settles in with several more songs
\nin exactly the same vein, the pattern begins to get old quickly.
\nSongs like “Electro Shock Faders” and “Lung,” which otherwise would
\nhave likely stood out on the album, become a blur all too
\nquickly.<\/p>\n
To Hooverphonic’s credit, they do inject new life into the album
\non “This Strange Effect,” though I can’t figure out for the life of
\nme why this song struck me as noteworthy more than several others
\non the album. Nevertheless, by the time “Magenta” and the album’s
\nuncredited thirteenth track kick in, the musical blur starts up
\nagain.<\/p>\n
Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the songs on
\nBlue Wonder Powder Milk<\/i> are bad; in fact, it was refreshing
\nto hear an album that concentrated on melody more than volume,
\nsomething I don’t often hear these days. It’s just that by sticking
\nwith one particular style of songwriting and performing,
\nHooverphonic, in effect, become their own worst enemy. Had there
\nbeen a little more variety in the songwriting, this album could
\nhave been that much better.<\/p>\n
\nBlue Wonder Powder Milk<\/i> is still very much worth your
\nattention and money, for it is an album that plows some new ground.
\nAnd had they not kept working on the same parcel of land throughout
\nthe album, it could have raised up to the next level. Still,
\nthere’s a lot of promise in this group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7576],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39392","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hooverphonic","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39392"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39392"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}