Hey! Hello! (Self Titled)

Credit: Photo from http://heyhellomusic.bandcamp.com/

This is the most out-there part of the album. promise.

Power Pop! How long has it been since Power Pop has been on the charts anywhere? Mind you, Hey! Hello!’s self-titled first album isn’t on the charts here in America but as I write this it’s Number One on the UK rock charts, which means there have been some shots fired in the ongoing war against mopey medicrity in rock music. Not everybody trained at the venerable Marc Pfeiffer School Of Rock Music History (unaccredited, but hey what is), so let’s briefly unpack what Power Pop is:

Hitting its peak popularity in the late 1970’s with the flood of Back-To-Basics bands that showed up to desecrate the corpse of arena rock, Power Pop splits the difference between New Wave and Punk, rejecting the idea that a song has to be wordy and nuanced OR uncomplicated and angry to be good, respectively. Bands like Cheap Trick, the Knack and The Cars played songs that you can master within your first few months on guitar while layering innovative melodies and feel good lyrics tinged with sardonic wit that only reveals itself when you take the time to put a magnifying glass to something that seems childishly simple. Anyway, that’s a pretty nebulous description for a subgenre of rock so I’ll point to another of Dylan Roth’s legendary Litmus Tests for Musical Genre Placement, the “Power Pop Proof.” Basically if you can clap along to a song using the drum beat from That Thing You Do (a seminal power pop post-facto hit you can listen to here http://youtu.be/fzllVlzzeuo) then it’s probably power pop. You know the one. (Boom)Clapclap… Clap. That one.

Photo: Paul Harries from https://www.facebook.com/heyhellomusic

Frankly, I’ve been known to give a lot of leighway for a good pomp.

Made up of singer/instrumentalist/fascinatingly-prolific hair metal veteran Ginger Wildheart and New York singer Victoria Liedtke, Hey! Hello!’s first album is the sort of perfect Power Pop confection that I’ve been waiting to crest the horizon just as the orcs of modern-day rock storm the gates of Helm’s Deep. There’s been an imposter punctuation-band-for-young-people called Fun. trying to foist funeral dirges with incidental lyrics about youth on the general populace, backed up by The Lumineers’ insipid concept of “Oh wouldn’t it be cute if we had fun like they used to in the old days, wouldn’t that just be so adorable” so expertly executed on Ho-Hey. You may have noticed that there are threads of linguistic similarity between all the acts described which form the perfect negative space outline for Hey! Hello! to fill in and explode out of like pushing cookie dough through a Play-Doh Fun Factory and oh boy do they do it right.

Forgive me if I have a little trouble finding where to start with this album, I’ve been listening to it on a loop all afternoon while drifting in and out of dreams of driving a convertible to the beach and guys I really HATE the beach so the fact that I kind of want to do that should indicate the quality of these tunes. I’m loathe to fall back on the standard music journalistic equation of describing new music as (Band x Band)+Drug, but at its best HEY! HELLO! is like a supergroup of Cheap Trick and Def Leppard members fronted by Andrew WK and the poppier side of metal’s Mz. Hyde, Lzzy Hale all going out of their god damn minds on some MDMA formulated by Walter White himself. Nonstop unfiltered sonic ecstasy crashing in waves of a classic wall of sound filling every spare space of this tidy 36 minutes to the point that finishing it in one sitting leaves you with the telltale sore throat of a sleepover sugar binge.

It’s a single-minded controlled explosion with Liedtke and Wildheart’s enthusiasm pumping the pistons inside a well-tuned V8 engine. There’s rarely a rough patch to be found, which can be disconcerting. We stalwart guardians of music taste tend to be dismissive of highly produced sounds, calling them “Plastic” or “Passionless.” Here the compression and stack’em to the heavens layered vocals are definitely mechanical but it’s a giant robot put to the service for good. (I know I’ve still got Pacific Rim on the brain but Ginger Wildheart is a pretty great Jaeger Name, right?) In many ways it’s a bold move to devote an entire album to one feeling and sound, not diversifying into a ballad or a softer pop song or something. You have to be a trained musical sniper taking precision shots instead of loading your blunderbuss with a dance song and a soul song and a rock song and hoping two or three of them are good. I’m nothing if not a fan of a singular uncompromising artistic vision so it works for me, but if you’re not in a mindset that permits you to set up speakers on top of a building and dare to be unflinchingly happy until your body runs out of pleasure chemicals and starts turning pizza directly into seratonin then this is perhaps not the album for you. If you want some help deciding, check out the standout tracks.

Black Valentine launches Baba O’Riley into the arms of Mutt Lange and doesn’t stop until you fall over dancing and screaming along.

Feral Days turns a phrase so simple and affirming in its chorus that you almost miss the great showcase for Liedtke’s partygirl poppiness and harmonies.

Swimwear is the great Queen/Def Leppard summer single that we never got, not recommended for those who confuse pessimism with realism.

Burn the Rule Book (Fuck It) shows off the more cynical side of Hey! Hello!’s song writing wit, though the moral is to have a party even when things are shit.

How I Survived The Punk Wars is a great bit of Crag Finning about the music business from a man who’s been in it since 1985.

I’m Gonna Kiss You Like I’m Going Away shows up outside your house after curfew and picks up your inner teenager to go to Taco Bell. Listen and feel yourself go through puberty again.

And that’s it for me. If you’re open to the idea of feeling really good without apologizing for it then pick up Hey! Hello! right this second.

Post By Mike Pfeiffer (31 Posts)

Deadshirt staff writer. The last guy in the pews of the church of rock and roll, strains the seeds from Dylan's mind grapes, listens to AC/DC while cooking.

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