Review Summary: vv
Vulnerability isn’t a contained emotion but rather an uncontrollable portrait-in-progress. It begs for intense raw colors, but instead the brush leaks vapor trails across the furled edges of one’s pierced skin. In the case of the slowcore outfit Hovvdy, their painting feels removed yet sincerely human. While the buzzing guitars bleed melancholia and lethargy, a lonesome singer unravels with reluctance by floating half-hidden metaphors into the dusty air. Sometimes moments of blended brilliance reveal themselves as seen with ‘Favorite’s’ ending and beginning pronoun use: “
took my mind / off you were leaving / for a good reason / you had a good reason “. In just 11 lines you’re transported into nostalgia-ridden suburban neighborhoods, the setting for a memorized re-telling of the loss of a friend (or maybe it was a soul mate?). Parts of
Taster expose these deeply rooted emotions and regrets in shades of metallic brushstrokes, especially with ‘In My Head’s’ messiness and honesty that exposes the true intentions bubbling underneath the frame. Although the band flips between obscured desires and blatant honesty like a switch, it’s the faint transition between darkness and light that promulgates this organic sense of vulnerability.
Vagabonds: an apt analogy for the Austin Texans as the instrumentation is aimless yet serene in nature, never needing to find a distinctive home. On ‘Try Hard’ both guitarists lay in the desert staring at the vast night sky in near silence, breathing in offset waves as if they are listening for each others’ stifled sighs. Highlight ‘Can’t Wait’ feels more like a drunken walk across a venue’s floor, careless in the fretted delivery yet confident in its imperfections and stumbles.
Taster is a sound wave pulsating between two polar opposites yet never truly peaking in either extreme, instead opting to comfortably remain in the intermediary. The same can be said for their influences as they willingly take Duster’s patient and soothing songwriting yet condense these foundations into Alex G-sized bites. ‘Problem’ sees the happy medium between both dualities with its fetching melody and subtly composed build, proving to be one of the more successful tracks on the album. Fittingly, its subject matter is on par with the theme of vagrancy as the lead singer seemingly pleads with their partner that they “
wanna live here / for a couple of years / the city my grandpa lived in ”. It’s a confession, yet the tone is riddled with black splotches of uncertainty, almost as if they know in one way or another they will never truly feel at home. Although this leaves plenty of room for intimidating unknowns, there’s still this sense of warmth within not knowing what will come next. This makes Hovvdy just like everyone else in this world: eternal vagabonds.
