It has been a long, hard day, and I'm tempted to write this one off so I can proceed unabated with my two favorite hobbies: drinking gin and tonic and playing World of Warcraft. Stop reading this crap, I should write, and go buy Hubbell Mountain's "Silent Pilot" EP. You'll like it. Trust me.
Regrettably, this is the kind of behavior which can cost you a job... even if that job is entirely voluntary. So, allow me to say this: Stop reading this crap. Go out and buy Hubbell Moutain's "Silent Pilot" EP. Immediately. Seriously. You'll like it.
What? You don't trust me? Fine. Listen for yourself:
Funky, could-it-be-a-drum-machine backing percussion. Warm, clean guitars dancing in familiar yet altogether odd progressions. Drums dried to Nigel Godrich-like perfection. Shrill vocals crying sullen abstractions in the highest of registers. Honestly, guys. What's not to like?
With this effort Hubbell Mountain blends prog structure and pop sensibility with a kind of perfect alchemy that can't help but excite the senses. The music is complicated, but concise. The musicianship is professional, but nowhere does it delve into purposeless virtuosity.
Sonically, "Silent Pilot" falls between the melodic solemnity of Explosions in the Sky and the frenetic complexity of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief days. Hubbell's palate features ample smatterings of thick, warm guitar laced with lithe, almost aqueous vocals, and is augmented by the occasional foray into electronic experimentalism. Theirs is a complicated mixture that would kill a band of lesser talent. Luckily, these guys have the chops to pull it off, and pull it off they do.
If there's any fault to be found with "Silent Pilot" it is that the damn thing is too short. Yes, I understand it is an EP. Yes, I understand EP's are short. But I want more, damnit.
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