Hooray For Earth - True Loves

In music critic Simon Reynolds 2011 book ‘Retromania’, he made the point that the seemingly almost constant 80’s revival has gone on far longer than the length of that much-feted decade itself. New York indie pop group Hooray For Earth are yet another band that mine those 80’s influences, albeit from a rather more lo-fi angle.

Hooray For Earth are centred around singer and multi-instrumentalist Noel Heroux and ‘True Love‘, their debut album is finally being released in the UK through Memphis Industries despite having been available in their homeland for almost a year. Their sound is very redolent of the clutch of American indie groups that have embraced synthesiser sounds mixed with pop sensibilities over the last decade; think Yeasayer, MGMT and the poppier side of Animal Collective, unfortunately Hooray For Earth’s sound is far less nuanced and a bit more scatterbrained than their compatriots.

The album begins with the meandering unconventional melody of opener ‘Realize It’s Not The Sun’ and the nature of that track continues throughout an album that flits incoherently from the breezy symphonic ELO styled pop of ‘Last Minute’ to the pounding electro beats of ‘Sails’. There is undoubtedly a great deal of ambition; ‘No Love’ is enlivened by a sampled horn section and the title track is a great juxtaposition between an oblique stark verses and a hook filled chorus that sees Heroux enthusing about being “Under a wall of sound” however, that ambition does not always match up to the quality of the songs.

It is striking that, for an album that features so much use of synthesiser and dance pop rhythms and dynamics, it is a curiously anaemic and funk-less take on dance music, the sound is, on the whole, airy and floaty and many of the songs just drift by without catching your attention. Far better is album highlight and single ‘Bring Us Closer Together’ which sounds like a prime Trevor Horn produced piece of 80’s MOR pop; filled with big blasting synths and soaring vocals the track and has an exuberance that is sadly missing from the rest of the album.

Listening to ‘True Loves’ you are left with the impression that there is a great electro pop record here waiting to get out but it is stymied by arid production and a general lo-fi homemade vibe. The album was entirely performed, engineered and produced by Noel Heroux; perhaps the input of a full band and a producer would have brought these songs to life and produced a rather more coherent and fully formed debut.