Labels: Interscope
Review by: Mark Skold
Now, let’s be honest here: The Hippos are a real ska band. There are 6 band members, they all dress the same and some of them play horns. However, the Hippos differ from your average ska band in the sense that they do not attack your tolerance levels nearly as much as another ska band would.
When ordering some t-shirts from Fueled By Ramen (a top record label – check ’em out at www.fueledbyramen.com) they were kind enough to include a sampler tape of these guys. Having heard some of their old stuff on a Vagrant Records sampler, I knew kind of what to expect. But this is good, good stuff.
Although they are a ska band, not all of the songs are altogether ska songs. There are a bunch of moog synthesizers and keyboards on tracks such as the pop-tastic ‘Pollution’ and ‘Thinking’. Unfortunately, for those of you who get tired of the old ‘upstrokes on the clean guitars’ and onslaught of pop tunes from trombones, they are there in the majority of the songs.
But if you can see past all that, check out these guys. The singer has the most instantly likeable voice you can imagine, since they signed to Interscope Records they got to spend lots of cash on the recording studio and production, so it all sounds cool and, most importantly, the songs on this CD are killer. Really nice, poppy, jolly songs that are alot more than just tunes.
Order something from Fueled By Ramen, and get the tape.
Did I say “Ska” enough?