Saturday, September 16, 2006

i guess all there is to do around here is just live.

Brian Moss is not one for leaving recipes stagnant. Upon reading a brief review of 2004's We Are All Natural Disasters, I set out to find this debut album from Chicago's Hanalei to find out firsthand if it was as good as it sounded. Hanalei became one of those bands that I looked for out of habit any time I was in any record store. During a period of time when I didn't have internet access readily available, this was how I found music. The dark ages. I never did find that album, and by the time I found their sophomore record, Parts and Accessories, earlier this year I couldn't quite remember anything about their debut's review or why I was so interested.
Parts and Accessories impressed me nonetheless. It's a solid rock album with charming crisp vocals and guitars that bounce and jangle. It wouldn't be out of place next to a Weakerthans record or even one by The Ghost, Moss' old band. But tonight everything about that initial review came back to me. Comparisons to The Postal Service and Her Space Holiday were mentioned as easily as to Death Cab and The Shins. In listening to Parts and Accessories now it's easy to concede why I couldn't remember what intrigued me about them from before I had even heard them. However, Brian Moss would have to do quite a bit more to distance himself from Ben Gibbard comparisons. Tonight was also the first I had heard any of that debut album, We Are All Natural Disasters, and was exactly what reminded me of that fateful review in the first place.
This is all extremely wordy and interesting to, I'm sure, nobody but myself. But it's cathartic to get it all out.
Hanalei has always written great tunes that have the ability to charm the socks off any listener. They've entirely eliminated the fairly heavy electronic feel of their first album for a slick indie rock sophomore release, and if you forget what they sound like and the contents of this (pseudo-)review in two years, you may be discovering something completely new.



Hanalei's "Action Drum"
"Josh & Sarah's Belated Wedding Present"
& "Anza Ninety Three"
from We Are All Natural Disasters

Hanalei's "Resonate Remain"
"Sloth Art"
& "Nothing Works"
from Parts and Accessories


I've heard that Moss' first self-released EP, though the songs would be largely remolded into Natural Disasters songs, sounds more akin to Calexico than anything else. In conclusion, someone find Hurricane We for me.

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