Hop Sing - Hop Sing - Download (2011)

Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm

Here are some Norwegians taking a swing at doing the Cap’n Jazz thing, just two years after everyone else started. It’s a bit hit and miss but they show a slightly better grasp of the style than any one of a number of recent American attempts you care to name. Off key Kinsella vocals that are often hoarse and wavery are dutifully present, as are pretty guitars that chime charmingly. Hop Sing deliver 3 songs and they capture the sound competently, but there’s still a little something missing. The songs are much slower than Cap’n Jazz, but that does allow the prettiness to seep through. I suspect that there may be irony involved, the Norwegians I know have an exceptionally dry and finely honed sense of humour, and Hop Sing have a song named “We Will Ride Our Bicycles Until the Morning Says Goodnight”. You make the call.

This demo is a good start, I think they could benefit from drifting a little futher from the template, but this is a good stab at a traditional take on this style of emo, and to me that is more palatable than the modernised versions doing the rounds lately.

band camp