Customer Reviews

Hillside

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album was a constant companion as I made my way through the Islands of Hawaii. It provided me with a soundscape to match the surreal surroundings that I encountered. This is a great album for the head. Place it on your computer and check out the extra cuts (Twist is great) in an audio and visual way. I just wish I could find their earlier stuff. Enjoy!

This is kind of hard to explain. I've owned this record since whenever it was released. And I always liked it. And then I realised, a couple of months ago, that out of all the records and CDs in my collection (and there are a lot), this is the one that I play most often. And now I can't get it out of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I quite like Travis. But if you like Travis, please buy this record. It is along the same lines, but stronger, warmer, lusher, more tuneful, funnier, sadder, and so on. Also, if you've ever liked one of Radiohead's slow songs, or if you like to chill out to a Pink Floyd kind of vibe, please give this record a try. I find it quite upsetting that this band isn't famous, or rich, or both!

The ghosts of Big Star, Barrett-era Floyd and Jimi Hendrix lurk in the shadows of this record. The melodies are achingly pretty, the bleached-out falsetto harmonies make you want to weep, and the rockers butt you in the head and tell you to snap out of it. However, right from the muted howl which cues in opener Fleas Don't Fly, you realise you've never been anywhere quite like Hillside before. Arnold have an impressively wide musical vocabulary - this album speaks drone rock, pastoral psych, folk and jazz - but what they actually have to say is what is most disarming. Lyrically, this is great stuff, at times brutal and direct, at others darkly humourous or gently surreal. Guitarist Saxby and vocalist Morris seem to follow John Lennon's advice to whoever-it-was: "Just write what you feel and make it rhyme." They must be feeling pretty unusual. It takes a touch of genius to dream up and wrap melodies around lines like these: "out here, in a year of English rain/ with the student girls from Kingston/ make me feel low again."

Recreational smoking materials were also almost certainly instrumental in the production of Hillside, but the vibe is not one of monged-out beatitude or self-indulgent space-jamming. The mood shifts are there, though. Whilst 'Goodbye Grey' and 'Face' are almost recklessly sad, the spoken-word 'Rabbit' and the title track 'Hillside' offer up optimism and acceptance in the face of loss. 'Moroccan Roll' is a fierce head-on confrontation with depression. Being English, the band also do whimsy ('Curio') and mid-paced rockers shot through with strangeness ('Windsor Park') very well. There are laughs too, but not until the hidden tracks at the end. This is, mostly, serious stuff. Hillside is one of the few records in life that you actually need. Buy it while you can. It's probably been deleted.

I saw this band in Providence last year and took a copy of a three song demo they were handing out. "Ira Jones...", "Sun" and one other (can't remember the name) hooked me and I couldn't wait to hear "Hillside". Where's the spunk and attitude I saw on stage? I'm disappointed both in the guitar and vocal work, especially after hearing a much livlier sound on stage. I hope they can recapture some of that spirit in the studio for their next effort because I think they have great potential.

Arnold, huh?

Nope, it's not that muscular German guy that married into the Kennedy clan, despite his Republican leanings. Not golf's Mister Palmer either. Not even the pig on Green Acres or the kid on that badly drawn Nickelodeon cartoon. This Arnold are an English band who were once known as Patio until losing their lead singer to a tragic accident, then making their drummer become the new lead singer, then renaming themselves after their bass player's dog. This Arnold scored a record deal with the UK's influential Creation Records when their casual-sounding demo serendipitously landed in the hands of hard-to-impress label boss Alan McGee, who was impressed despite himself and quickly shipped the trio off to record their debut album in a barn. Literally.

Arnold have a new record out called "Hillside", which ups the sonic ante slightly over both their demo cassette and 1996's "The Barn Tapes". Most of "Hillside"'s songs still sound as if they were recorded on a single microphone in one take on rudimentary analog recording equipment, while some of the records cuts actually were recorded that way. These simply rendered tunes sound magnificent, reminding this listener of how much intimacy, nuance and touch has been lost since the studio became an instrument and not a space for capturing moments.

"Hillside" is filled with captured moments, laced with lovely psychedelic guitar pop, chockablock with moving songs played splendidly by drummer-guitarist-vocalist Phil Morris, singer-guitarist Mark Saxby, bassist-vocalist Phil Payne and couple of helpers. It's comfortable, confident and armed with more lingering hooks than you're ever likely to find outside of bait and tackle shop. And it has a rabbit on its cover.

Some people I know, myself included, drink this album like it's the nectar of poppies flooding the plains of heaven. We play, swim. Rising ever higher, our minds melt into an absolute breakdown of musical convention. A band from 1998 England sounding like psychodelic alt country from the far future, warming your mind across the span of time. Go figure. This band does what it likes. Get it or don't. That said, their 2002 full-length, Bahama, isn't nearly as good.

i'd heard great things about this record and was thrilled when i found it still wrapped for $1.99 in princeton. suffice to say that the measly two bucks i spent is the only thing keeping me in good humor regarding this record.

i feel as though i've heard these songs a hundred times before and immediately forgot them only to hear another sad, breathy band try and foist them on me again. lethargic tempos, pedestrian acoustic strumming and unengaging melodies with a few odd, annoying castoffs thrown in for bad measure. too many other bands (pernice brothers, red house painters) do melancholy and wistful better to bother with arnold. love the cover though.

Hillside is a gorgeous album, featuring some really wonderful moments. Windsor Park is quite simply one of those songs that I know will stay with me for a lifetime. Soaring but delicate - as is much of the album - I can listen to it last thing at night to relax or first thing in the morning to wake up and face the day.

The sad news is that Creation - Arnold's UK record label - have split with the band. Arnold themselves are confident that this is a positive move, since they are now free to sign with a label which is keen to promote them.

But, just in case they disappear without trace - I'd be amazed and deeply saddened if they did - make sure you buy your copy now.

"Fleas don't Fly", the opening track unwinds all acoustic, Floydian, a great song. But it's largely downhill from there..few of the following tracks come close to touching that song's lulling insularity. Instead, we get the mildly annoying quiet/heavy dynamics of "Ira Jones..", the smarmy self-satisfied ('hidden tracks are easy to find, just let the disc play out' they offer helpfully on the back) air of the mock-country 'Country Bisquit' and so on. I don't like to put down bands in this manner, especially one as sonically capable as these guys, but that feel of 'almost there' that I get from this LP is way frustrating.

An amazing album from a new British band. Like Radiohead, but a little softer. Something for everyone. Buy it!