Review Summary: The air we breathe, the land we walk on
Somehow
Hikes feels important to me. I’m not sure why. Simply knowing that it’s lovely isn’t enough of a justification for that feeling. I normally leave on albums in the background and expect them to do their duty from an unprivileged position; there,
Hikes is just a pretty-sounding record with a lot of stuff going on. I might be browsing websites, idly noting the occasional stand-out section in a particularly active song.
Hikes, a quartet from Austin, Texas, are self-styled as playing “experimental, nature-based math rock with a dash of folk”, a lengthy label that might hint at some sort of near-mystical connection with the ebb and flow of nature. It doesn’t really need to be asked whether Hikes are technically proficient. In fact I almost want to avoid all mention of the cold, objective characteristics that do technically constitute their style. Odd, constantly-shifting time signatures? Check. Elaborate, twinkling guitar runs and harmonies? Check. Complex and unpredictable rhythms? Check. The ending of “Tinker Creek” features intense dissonance, “Tenth Walk” concludes in a fury of riffing and drum fills. But these are just bare-minimum requirements for being able to label oneself as a math rock outlet, and I don’t think Hikes are particularly interested in making a bare-minimum album.
No, what they’ve made is something that is quite remarkable.
Hikes pulls me through my digitized files and plastic earphones into a world where wonderment for nature, and indeed life, is an omnipresent feeling. The energy and effervescence of opener “Spring Forward” is immediate in effect; Nathan Wilkins’ agile vocals complement the exuberant instrumentation, and the stop-start rhythms so often employed in math rock feel absolutely organic here. There’s even a rustic-sounding trumpet. The arpeggios and rapidly ascending guitar lines of “Like Ripples” really do feel like sonic representations of ripples in the water. Moments of explosiveness, like fervent exclamations of
I’m alive!, are often right beside passages of serene beauty and reflection. Something about
Hikes makes it fit for every season: it will capture the warmth of summer and radiate it during the winter; it will plant the growths of spring and collect the harvests in fall. The patient build-up at the end of “Quilt”, leading up to a cathartic cacophony, can attest to the maxim that you reap what you sow. “Out of the sedentary confines I deem winter/comes the spring”, sings Nathan on “Tinker Creek”; change is inevitable, and each song is a microcosm of this natural order.
But
Hikes also feels much more personal than the general ongoings of nature. “All the same, I'm different than I was just yesterday/That’s just nature told by nature”, Nathan continues. It’s this close, intricate bond between nature and the self that gives much warmth and spirit to
Hikes.
Hikes is not sound for the sake of sound, complexity for the sake of complexity; at its heart are some of our innermost sentiments which happen to be viewed through metaphors and wistful observations. For those of us who spend most of our time in urban environments, we may forget how it feels to be connected to the land from which we arose and on which we will eventually fall.
And
Hikes isn’t concerned with making us feel happy so much as alive; “...I trace with one eye shut the only cloud in the sky…because we felt alive”. From the gentle yearning of the acoustic “Chamomile” to the fast-paced chaos of “Tenth Walk”, there is a sense of emotional immediacy, a certain thrill. However, these blooms will want a couple of attentive listens before they fully unfurl - the subtleties that the songs of
Hikes hold might be glossed over, even if their immediate impact is felt.
I’m finally starting to understand why
Hikes feels important to me. At some point between background listens 1 and 4, it latched onto me and never let go. It’s a record that seems to embody a certain, essential part of existence, and I was neglecting it all to my detriment. But no longer.
