This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.
Saddle Creek – 22 Aug 2006
Often overshadowed by its predecessor, Happy Hollow deserves to be recognized as a great Cursive album.
Cursive‘s fifth album, Happy Hollow, was sadly overlooked and under appreciated mainly because it followed on the heels of the band’s 2003 LP, the almost universally beloved Ugly Organ. Happy Hollow may be a little bit more heavy handed in its lyrical themes and morales, but it’s kind of hard to not get heavy handed with this kind of material. The album is a concept album based on the mostly-fictional town of Happy Hollow (the name is a reference to a real neighborhood in Omaha, but also works as a double meaning to demonstrate how much the town’s image is just a hollow façade of happiness). Instead of telling one continuous story, the songs serve as short stories about the residents of Happy Hollow which, through the course of each song, start to unveil the hypocrisies underlying the town’s “perfect image,” particularly in terms of the hypocrisies of organized religion. Whereas The Ugly Organ toyed with Catholic imagery and references to Tim Kasher’s Catholic upbringing, Happy Hollow is an almost single-minded vendetta against religion in general.
The Ugly Organ had seen the addition of Gretta Cohn, whose cello added a unique counterbalance to the guitars. But, as popular as her addition to the band had been, she sadly only stayed around for the Burst and Bloom EP and The Ugly Organ before departing the band. Rather than putting another cellist in her place, Happy Hollow goes in an entirely different direction with the addition of a five-piece horn section with arrangements by Bright Eyes‘ Nate Walcott, which still contrasts to the guitars but in a very different way than a cello. At times the horns give us the bright and happy artifice that is characteristic of the town of Happy Hollow, while, at other times, they descend into chaos to represent the town’s seedy underbelly.
The opening track, “Opening the Hymnal/Babies” is a sort of overture to introduce you to the dichotomy within this town, while also leaning heavily on the word “baby” as a sort of foreshadowing towards the later track “At Conception,” the story of a priest who’s well known for successfully talking young women out of abortions outside of the local abortion clinic, but when he gets a teenage girl pregnant insists that she get an abortion before anyone hears about it. “Dorothy at Forty” explores the familiar themes of getting trapped in your small hometown while dreaming of something bigger, all whilst weaving in imagery from The Wizard of Oz, becoming a two-part song that concludes a few songs later with “Dorothy Dreams of Tornadoes.” “Big Bang” paints the battle-lines between religion and science and plays a sort of faux-neutral position, claiming to weigh both equally but with a thumb clearly on the scale favoring science. “Bad Sects,” with its obvious play on language, is a gorgeous song about two priests falling in love with each other and suddenly realizing that some of the church’s rules are completely arbitrary. “Into the Fold” is, musically, one of the prettiest emo songs I’ve ever heard, but lyrically it tells the story of a predatory man pursuing a young college girl. Finally, “Hymns for the Heathen,” with its sarcastically sing-songy tone, summarizes each song on the album while tying together the themes.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who actively dislikes Happy Hollow, but I don’t think it really gets thought of in the same conversations as The Ugly Organ, Domestica, or even Vitriola, and I think it deserves to be. Like I said, the lyrical themes are a bit on the heavy handed side, but the way they’re woven together is surprisingly elegant. Kasher and company basically give us the indie-rock/emo/art-rock answer to a Bad Religion album. Its takedown of religion is pulling some very familiar punches, but those punches are wielded in a different way than you’re used to, and it’s hard to deny that they’ve hit their mark.
Julie is punk rock, lesbian time lady from the future. The greatest things in the world are punk rock and science fiction. Check out her website JulieRiver.com!
