By Nathan Taylor
Hippo Campus is having fun playing mad scientist once again. The latest project from the St. Paul, Minnesota indie/alternative outfit, somewhat ironically named EP3, is radiating with potential. Experimental sound mixing and lively lyrics by head honcho Jake Luppen make this album similar but oh-so different from its predecessors. Hippo Campus has generally been known to the indie world for their wonderfully chill, bite sized EP’s, and have only just began to tap the larger alternative market with their first full length album Landmark in 2017. Since then, the band has taken the poppy chill sounds of their shorter projects and began playing around with the engineering capabilities of a full-length album worth of resources. Their second full length project Bambi is indicative of this to a degree, but EP3 blows the creativity out of the water. A little bit of dirty, earthy mixing here, a dash of youthful lyrics there, and a slight jolt of electricity, “double bubble, toil and trouble”, we have a cauldron of pure Hippo Campus idiosyncrasy coming your way…
The first ingredient to Hippo Campus’ concoction is “2 Young 2 Die”, a grungy, dirty, static, beautiful mess of pretty layered chords, accented by DeCarlo Jackson’s brassy trumpet chops. Following a dive in the deep end with Hippo Campus’ engineering is “Blew It’s”, a mellow but fast paced call back to the sounds of one of the band’s first EP’s, Bashful Creatures. After “Blew It’s” abrupt end is my favorite track on the album, “Ashtray”. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the poppier sounds that have come from the band, but this track is the closest thing on the project to a mainstream hit, readily available with accessible lyrics and a constant sweet lead guitar strum to carry the song all the way to a wider audience. The next element of this wintertime cocktail is “Bang, Bang”, complete with stacked lyrics and musical contributions from the entire band, culminating into a sound that is sweet, savory, and everything in between. The Sultans of Minnesota move away from the raunchier lyrics found on the rest of the album for “Semi Pro”, carrying a beautiful message of self-motivation and bettering of oneself. Now that we have a bit of sweet sugar in our mixture, we need to add some heavy drum with “Ride or Die”, a percussion motivated song with one of the best musical bridges I have personally heard from the band since I became an avid listener. Hippo Campus starts to play with the sound board again with “Scorpio”, dotting the vivid imagery of the everyday life with quirky sound bites and a bright guitar solo that just begs the listener to broaden their musical horizons. For those who like a little bit of bite, “Listerine” has piercing lyrics that are made all the more shrewd with a somber, close to the chest vocal style utilized by Luppen. This somber yet beautiful mentality is carried through the next track “Boys” as well, albeit with some hopeful jangly guitar riffs and thick electronic percussion. The final cherry on top, olive in the glass, icing on the cake, or however you take your albums is “Understand”, a track that feels more like a poetic plea for the listener to go for another round rather than jarring the album up and shelving it for later. The song washes down its contemporary chorus lines and contemporary flair with sideways lyrics and a discordant guitar solo that screams “listen to me again, you might’ve missed something!” Also, whoever Ada is, you did someone in the band dirty….
To sum up our list of ingredients would be against what I think this album is truly going for musically. Hippo Campus is a band that has newfound resources and want to explore the realm of possibility to it’s greatest extent, and I encourage it wholeheartedly. It’s very possible that you are the opposite of me and find everything wrong with this album, and that can happen with such a vast amount of experimentation. However, without experimentation, where else can we go as musicians and listeners?…
Loading ...