The Hidden Cameras - 'The Smell Of Our Own' (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Toby L
It's kind of difficult to not crack a vaguely concealed smirk at the proclamation of 'golden streams' being repeated endlessly.
Indeed, and such is the rampant openness of The Hidden Cameras' head-lyricist and singer Joel Gibb that other such lyrical-oddities are a consistent marker on this, the Canadian 14-piece's debut-LP: one so frantically laced with gay overtures and comedic side-references, that you feel as if there's a not-so-subtle bid herein to cause a mass-scale sexuality-conversion.
But then that'd be a part of The HC's contradiction. Otherwise, they're an easy-going, free-spirited and oddly religious-suggestive wall-of-sound that blankets the speakers in an aural wave of chirpy, not entirely un-celebratory, indie-pop, full melodies and throats-a-blazing. Live, you suspect it'd be quite a sensation, and recorded it still manages to evoke a low-key eruption in the space of your own living-quarters, this first-unleashed clutch of ten tracks a sure-fire set of entrants into your pile of CD-favourites.
And anyone with a song as anti-nuptial as the hilarious brooding burst of 'Ban Marriage' is alright by rockfeedback's standards, the rest a shimmering array of grin-inducing merriment, and the likes of 'A Miracle' tinkering plaintively alongside an altogether more haunting series of undertones. Musically, it's Belle & Sebastian meets Proclaimers and either of the 'Rev/Lips, Gibb's voice a cracked flourish amidst a regularly astounding series of simply classic-sounding, truly memorable moments (peruse 'Boys Of Melody' for proof),
It then soon becomes a tad 'spot-the-decadence'. Truthfully, you could be there all bloody night, unfurling meanings and themes, but certain phrases leap out at randomly-existing intervals (hard to avoid the inspired likes of 'It is the smell of dry cum on the rug' or 'My golden bone meets the golden bun' when such idioms inflict themselves upon your hearing).
But, if there's one thing 'The Smell...' successively pulls off (no pun/crassness intended here this time, guys), it's a rare balance between absurdity and carefully executed, masterfully constructed majesty: a fine line too seldom given a public chance to present itself.
Artists in this article: The Hidden Cameras
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment