Customer Reviews

Hopeful Monsters

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

 

 

This is a powerful album. The songs are clever and interesting in their expressive use of metaphor, and the lyrics are beautiful in their complexity. This is not a CD for everyone, true. But if you're looking for something a bit different, with a heartfelt truth to it, this is a good place to start.

I was quite a fan of Paul Melancon's solo work - but this album seems rushed and incomplete. The combination of his typical dirge-like sorrowful tomes with the jangly pop mess of this new combo just doesn't work. It sounds like any other mediocre indi-college rock. What a shame.

If pretension, tedium, and self-indulgence are your thing, then this is the album and Melancon is the 'artist' for you. This is, put simply, one of the worst albums I have ever heard. If you want to hear popular emo music listen to Dashboard Confessional, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, or even Saves The Day. This premeditated depression sound is plain irritating. The songwriter seems to be trying to turn his mediocre mid-life crisis into catchy teen angst. Mostly, it just sounds like an old man in a coffee shop strumming his guitar and whining. Is this supposed to be clever?

A reviewer less attuned to the subtleties of "Hopeful Monsters" might find it ironic that Paul Melancon has chosen this point in his artistic development to stop performing under his own name and adopt the more collective identity of a new band, The Arts and Sciences. After all, there's little doubt this will be touted as a deeply personal and introspective effort, reaching into the deepest recesses of Melancon's troubled psyche and chronicling the artist's struggle with depression. Make no mistake - The Arts and Sciences may be presented as a band, but the sound comes off as Melancon solo with a cadre of guest stars to support him in his darkest hour. He is meant to come across as a Syd Barrett-esque tragic figure who is battling his inner demons (or inner monsters, if you will) in a reluctantly public manner.

But listen more closely, and you'll slowly come to realize that Melancon isn't showing you his darkest side here...or any side at all, for that matter. The songs have an element of last-minute slapdashery to them, as though they are the result of 11th hour duress.

As a result, the metaphors are sloppy, the rhymes hackneyed, and the entire album rings with insincerity. The repeated allusions to deceit and dishonesty don't do much to help his case. We shouldn't expect any less from a man whose best song on his last album was called "King Sham," but a songwriter who purports to be presenting something so deeply personal should at least attempt to put his best, most honest foot forward.

To the casual listener, "Hopeful Monsters" will come off as pleasant, inoffensive indie pop. The band sounds like every other band who grew up with a stack of XTC records in their basement. Melancon's voice, to be fair, isn't bad. However, there's nothing earth-shattering, or even very good, on this album. Competent musicianship and talented backing vocalists (including a guest appearance by Rose Polenzani) can't overcome the shoddy songwriting and lack of enthusiasm. After awhile, everything begins to sound the same. And even from the first listen, the endless whining drones of "Fluoxetene," "Boom Echo," "What She Kept," and "The Monster at the End of This Book" are virtually indistinguishable from one another. In general, nothing stands out as unique to this particular act, and everything they do has been done better somewhere else.

Bottom line - buyers seeking out great pop should steer well clear of this album. As an alternative, Melancon's 2002 solo effort "Camera Obscura" manages to, well, suck less than "Monsters" does, but if you're looking for the kind of catchy, evocative power-indie-pop that this purports to be, you'd do better to dig into the back catalog of Crowded House, Big Star, the aforementioned XTC, or any one of a million other quirky-catchy bands that The Arts and Sciences tries to emulate.

I'm writing this for several reasons. One of which is my surprise at the form the criticism of this disc has taken.

It is fine to say it not your cup of tea but to condemn it because it is dark or was made quickly is so general and obscure as to be misleading.

It is an exceptional peice of work. It is unified in theme and tone and yet it has a great deal of melodic variety. And, it has more than a little magic. I truly hope that these muscians create another disc this good AND SOON.

The lyrics are very personal and not easily penetrable in every stanza but you will "get the drift". Yes, it has a theme of sorrow that runs through it but would you condemn the portion of Blues Music that does or the very sizable part of Country Music that does? The theme of lost love is a perenial favorite for music and poetry and drama.

What do you want...The Monkees 24/7?

Of course not.

If you've ever failed in a great love you may feel like some sort of monster. Yet, you still want love. Hope hasn't died entirely. Maybe you're a Hopeful Monster. If you're lucky you don't crawl into a hole and die, you DO SOMETHING. Melancon took up a pen and the rest plugged in and turned it on.

For those that paint this as some sort of glum musical experience I simply say they are substituting their personal tastes for an objective review. It is sorrowful but, the listener can also hear the energy and power in the songs.They aren't just a series of moans and groans. There is a living heartbeat which can be heard. It has snap and it has a beat and plenty of inventive changes. This instantly puts it in the top tier of music released in the past few years.

Drink some wine and turn the stereo up for "Dark Double Bed". I think you'll be dancing around the room and snapping your fingers. Maybe not to the lyrics but the energy and spirit of the melodies. "Fall Down" carries the lyrical theme forward with real power. Who hasn't had that horrible last phone call with someone they loved? This was the first song that made me a believer in this disc. It takes a painful scenario, describes it poetically, then wraps it up in a piece of music that I wanted to play over and over again.

Crank "Hopeful Monsters" up and listen. You may find that you are bobbing your head and shaking your butt...as tears fall down.

"Camera Obscura," Paul Melancon's previous solo CD, took a year & a half to record. "Hopeful Monsters" was recorded in 2 weeks at Rob Gal's studio. Gal also produced the Josh Joplin Group. I loved the beautiful melody of "Entr'acte" and the pep rock of "Jeff Lynne" on 'Obscura.' This set has a more offhand feel. The Arts & Sciences are on tour with label owners The Indigo Girls; so it will be interesting to hear how this set plays live. "What She Kept," the 2nd track, is a slow dreamy song that highlights Melancon's aching vocals, "What she kept was a fire escape of a love, a safety net you only reach from above." That's my favorite track on the set. "Fluoxetine" follows this same vein. The drug, sold commercially as Prozac, mirrors a slow dreamy melody that builds like one trying to overcome a deeply rooted sadness. "Boom Echo" again works well for Melancon's vocals in this slow sad dreamy melody genre, but with a bit more lyrical mud, "I am the man in this song now who knows that I am the man in this song with no hope of making sense of the scenery." The CD concludes with "Emma" that gets a nice groove going. Moments that work less well include "You Are Her(e)" that starts off, "This song is a new one; sit down, settle in; there's not much chance that you've heard it before so let's just begin." Truth be told, with a clunky lyric like that, there's not much chance that I'll hear it very often since I tend to skip past. I also find "O Columbia" to offer promise as a political protest song if "Columbia" is a reference to the "United States," but seems too obscure to really communicate, "Her friends are there but quiet, too afraid to suggest she ought to know." The song does rock a bit & have a pulse as does "Gravel Queen," but neither is overly distinguished. "Hopeful Monsters" appears to be more hopeful than realized, although there are moments that will continue to keep Melancon on my radar screen. Enjoy!

Last night, these guys opened for Indigo Girls in Greensboro, NC. I had never heard their music before & I was captivated from the first moment Paul's smooth voice & Erin's accompanying vocals sounded out. I was drawn into the wonderful beat of Chris's drums and Lee's lead guitar led the way for the songs.

After the band opened, I went to the lobby & purchased this album. I talked to the band (they're all very gracious) & they signed my CD. When I popped this thing into my CD player this morning, I was reminded of last night & the cohesiveness of this group. The melodies are poppy, the lyrics are catchy, & you'll be singing along as soon as you memorize the words. These guys are great on stage & they sound just as good on the album.

If you're looking for a fresh sound out of Atlanta, these guys are for you. This is probably one of the best albums I've picked up this year.

I don't know anything about the lead singer/songwriter's earlier solo projects so I can't speak on how HOPEFUL MONSTERS stands up against those, but I disagree with the other reviewer's assertion that this recording is mediocre "indi-college rock". In fact, I'm not sure what that even means these days, as that genre label was retired shortly after "grunge" if memory serves. On the contrary, I think HM is very good and full of thoughtful lyrical wordplay and nicely driven melodies that are engaging without being obnoxiously catchy. The songs work on you slowly, almost imperceptibly at times, until you catch yourself humming a particular tune and then tracking it back to a certain song. All of my favorite artists have worked on me that way, from Elliott Smith's EITHER/OR to Elvis Costello's IMPERIAL BEDROOM, and, while I'm not prepared to say that HM reaches those abnormally-high creative peaks, it is definitely a big step in the right direction and a standout debut disc. The first four tracks are all excellent, with "What She Kept" and "Tell It To The Bees" probably my favorite melodies, along with the pop-driven "O Columbia", which contains some great syncopated instrumentation near the bridge. The bassist, guitarist, and drummer all interact impressively with the lead vocals, especially on the quieter tracks. Not very many bands can use silence this well, or rather, use silence and pauses to heighten the impact of other areas of a song. Really good jazz quartets, like Gerry Mulligan's, can do that, but it's a rarity in pop music. Guitar effects, notoriously easy to overdo, are used with tact and good taste as well, the lead guitarist having a very good sense of what works best with a given song, i.e. it's never overpowering or obnoxious. After catching them live a few weeks ago, I did think several of the songs worked better as duets, or with both vocals mixed high, whereas on the CD, the harmony that they achieved live is sometimes stymied by the production, with the female bassist's vocal buried a bit within the mix. Both singers have nice voices so I'd make good use of both of them. Anyway, it's a great beginning and I look forward to seeing where they take this sound.

I saw them last night at the Rams Head Live in Baltimore opening for the Indigo Girls. They are gr8! They have an old school sound - not hard rock, kinda "Echo and the Bunnyman" -esk. This cd comes with the words. I'm gonna get the two cd's that Paul (the lead singer) has. Don't be afraid to try something new.