Hal - Hal

Tue 21st Jun, 2005 in Music Reviews

Glancing at the cover of Hal’s self-titled album, I could tell this was going to be cute. Very cute. And what do you know – opener What a Lovely Dance has the quaint title, the Beach Boys harmonies, the gentle drones of keyboard and just-the-right amount of synth sprinklings. It’s a low-key ballad with the eccentricity of Air and the retro stylings of The Thrills.

As though we’re now lulled into a certain secure sense of expectation, Play the Hits arrives with completely undisguised lashings of pure bubblegum pop. Perky basslines anchor a jigging rhythm and a syrupy-sweet ascending collection of chords and vocals.

The proceedings become rather folk-oriented with Keep Love as Your Golden Rule, which soon swings into a wah-wah accented ballad that’s so predictable that it’s likely you could sing a karaoke version, blind drunk, without having heard it before and be completely spot-on.

Don’t Come Running raises the bar significantly, providing a self-aware retro pop perspective complete with falsetto vocals and rollicking dance-friendly rhythm. The chorus is disturbingly infectious, and before you know it, you’re reluctantly grooving along to something that sounds like it should be on the Brady Bunch holiday soundtrack.

If Ben Folds sang I Sat Down, it could fall into that category of music nerd cool. Right now, however, it’s just music nerd. Flourishes of orchestration colour a sad country ballad with heavily chorused vocals, and although it’s the aural equivalent to an injection of sherbet, it doesn’t really go anywhere.

Fools by Your Side sees some interesting vocal delivery, with some very effective experiments in rhythm and harmony, as well as production-level tinkering. Several vocal parts build in momentum to a shimmering climax and the reintroduction of woodwind gently guides the track to the end.

Now another agonisingly slow ballad arrives with Satisfied, which seems to take sustain to another level with its multi-layered instrumental and vocal harmonies. A sneaky time change doesn’t achieve much other than resulting in more listener irritation than previously, and when Satisfied draws to a close it’s more relief than satisfaction I’m feeling.

Slow Down (You’ve Got a Friend) and closer Coming Right Over seem to blend into the same song – both with unadorned vocals and minimalist drones of instrumentation in the background. But Coming Right Over showcases some soulful ooohing and smacks of 60s soul pop, inciting imagery of a group of satin-clad chorus girls standing to one side. The gentle sway rhythm builds into an insistent snare-beat and tinkling cymbals with smatterings of warped vocals before fading out.

The Thrills and The Concretes do quaint retro-pop well, so it’s not that this genre is too much of an acquired taste. It’s unclear what elements made those albums successful, but it appears Hal hasn’t been able to get its hands on the same ingredients.