{"id":40521,"date":"2007-10-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-golden-hum\/"},"modified":"2007-10-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-02T00:00:00","slug":"the-golden-hum","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-golden-hum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Golden Hum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some music is instantly memorable: my first taste of Queen with \u201cKiller Queen\u201d was head-over-heels love at first listen, while on the other end of the spectrum, Nickelback made their initial and indelible mark on me by sending me immediately scrambling for a station change. Other material takes more time to come around\u00a0 to, like the third and final release from Los Angeles based pop rockers Remy Zero, 2001\u2019s <em>The Golden Hum. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Made up originally\u00a0of Alabama natives Louis Stefano on drums, bassist Cedric Lemoyne and brothers Cinjun and Shelby Tate handling vocals and guitars, Remy Zero were first exposed to the spotlight when Radiohead invited them to open for their US tour for The Bends. The band\u2019s self-titled first album was released to little fanfare, while their subsequent, Villa Elaine, earned them the fleeting next-best-thing title when it was released in 1998.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Golden Hum <\/i>brought with it a new line-up (swapping in Gregory Slay on drums and guitarist Jeffrey Cain) as well as a label swap to Elektra after being dropped by Geffen. The songs themselves, though, stay true to the band\u2019s penchant for ambitious, soaring soundscapes, Cinjun Tate\u2019s warm vocals and alternately delicate and crunching instrumentation. <\/p>\n<p>The album opens with its title track, which builds upon its deep, pulsating bass intro with layers of clean guitars, crescendoing drums and, finally, cataclysmic section of electric guitar which then fades right into the next song. \u201cGlorious #1\u201d is immediately catchy, with lines like \u201cI\u2019m back down to the glorious number one \/ My prints all over the smoking gun \/ Back down to the glorious number one \/ all lines to the living are now undone\u201d delivered in a seductive growl and backed by crunching guitars and a distorted bass line to enhance the feel of tension in the lyrics. <\/p>\n<p>The next few tracks are a string of heavy hitters: \u201cOut\/In\u201d is a tightly-crafted, three-minute slice of arena pop-rock reminiscent of U2 while the slow-burning \u201cBitter\u201d combines weaving guitar lines and low, grumbling drums with a moody chorus to provide the perfect antidote to the unflagging optimism of \u201cOut\/In.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>Featured as the title track for television\u2019s superhero hit <i>Smallville, \u201c<\/i>Save Me\u201d became a breakout hit, and for good reason; with lush, sweeping instrumentation and Tate\u2019s clear, powerful vocals, the song is anthemic and undeniably catchy, one of the album\u2019s sure highlights. <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, things begin to flag around the halfway mark: \u201cBelong\u201d and \u201cSmile\u201d are both decent, trading in crunching guitars for more downbeat, quiet arpeggios, but there\u2019s little divergence from formula and the songs ultimately fall flat as the album comes to a close. <\/p>\n<p>Overall, though, <i>The Golden Hum <\/i>is an endearing listen, its skillfully layered arrangements and the band\u2019s sensibility for crafting neat, poignant pop songs coming together to create a solid, if not earth-shattering, effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8055],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40521","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-remy-zero","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40521","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40521"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}