After experiencing a mini breakout with 2012’s debut self-titled album and landing on a number of blogosphere ‘Bands To Watch’ lists, Brooklynite trio Hospitality had a swell of hype to live up to for their sophomore album Trouble. It hasn’t phased them.
Amber Papini, Brian Betancourt and Nathan Michel prove that their expertly crafted indie pop was no fluke. Delightfully catchy and easy to soak up, cagey guitars are strummed and plucked at a lazy speed with lots of reverb, percussion titter-tatters lightly like rain drops on a Sunday morning, and Papini’s warmly elongated vocals, with all their oo’s and oh’s, compliment the cutesy scenery perfectly.
Their stripped-back song structures and instrumentation are basic to a precise degree, looping perfectly in the background between Papini’s charming storytelling – so perfectly that you might not notice your foot tapping or head nodding as each track comes to a slow-burning end.
Each echoed cymbal crash is placed perfectly and the atmospheric synths know when they’re needed to build a mood and when silence does it better. Every element in the soundscape knows its place, and never oversteps their place.
Hospitality’s blissful pop is witty and full of charm, greeting the ear like having a conversation with an old friend. It’s filled with mundane observations and stories, from star-gazing at the beach on “I Miss Your Bones” or telling off a kid for interrupting Barack Obama’s swearing-in broadcast on the synth-filled “Inauguration”. By the time you’ve checked your watch, an hour seems to have passed in ten minutes.
Trouble is string-based indie rock done right – filled with pop smarts and lyrical intelligence – and is the kind of album that will remain in tact for many more lazy Sundays, long car drives and years to come.
Listen to Trouble below. Out now via Inertia.
