Philly band Hurry’s new LP is pure power pop in the vein of the Posies and Matthew Sweet, revealing a band that is serious about its frivolity. When Hurry expanded to a trio for 2014’s Everything/Nothing, there were two ways to view Matt Scottoline’s formerly solo project. One: a solid Philadelphia band making fuzzy, mid-fi indie rock. The other was as an offshoot of Everyone Everywhere, who released two of the first truly outstanding albums
Hurry’s third LP “Guided Meditation” sounds like a credibility bid for Scottoline’s fledgling new band. The cover might be a Brian Eno homage, but there is no magical “Enoxification” happening here. Scottoline’s vocals aren’t subject to the same fuzz as the guitars. And there you go: Hurry decided they’re really a power-pop band at heart, not indie rock.
Regardless of how much Scottoline’s beloved Yo La Tengo or Guided By Voices influenced the writing of Guided Meditation, this is more in the lineage of the Posies and Matthew Sweet, acts who would’ve been considered pure pop had they existed in a different decade or just simply sold more records. And like them, Scottoline writes from a position of weakness, of being “dumb and in love” and not always both at the same time: he’s incapable of handling life due to the prospect of a new crush on “Fascination” (“overthink and overplan imagining you hold my hand”), uses relationships as a shield from life’s responsibilities (“Under Her Thumb”), retreats the moment those responsibilities start piling up (“Nothing to Say”) and ends Guided Meditation wishing for a kind of zen existence that requires nothing out of him (“I Wanna Be You”).
Hurry doesn’t overcomplicate things musically—they abide by the Weezer Method that states all vocal melodies should sound good as guitar leads and that instant gratification can be replicable gratification. Hurry are capable of expanse and modest grandeur, though like Everyone Everywhere, they find a kind of psychedelia in everyday fatigue—“Love is Elusive” cruises through six-and-a-half minutes of flanger clouds towards a sunburst of layered harmonies and “Nothing to Say” feels like companion piece to Everyone Everywhere’s definitive “I Feel Exhausted” if cubicle-bound anxiety was traded for a three-beer daze at happy hour.
The Fat Angel Sings 