Published on Sep 1, 1998
Is there ever a time that too much of something pleasant can be
bad?
I don’t refer to OD’ing on such culinary wonders as Ben &
Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream or Old Style; I refer to the music of
Belgium’s Hooverphonic. Their third album,
Blue Wonder Powder Milk, has some powerful moments on it,
but in the end becomes too repetitive for its own good.
With the lead vocals shared by Geike Arnaert and Alex Callier,
Hooverphonic inject an almost chant-like atmosphere to their
riff-based songs. (Rounding out the band are keyboardist Frank
Duchene and guitarist Raymond Geerts.) The opening track
“Battersea” provides an early glimpse into a different world of pop
music, one that quickly reminded me of Iceland’s Gus Gus. The songs
aren’t afraid to mix frantic drum fills with melodic string
arrangements – what is surprising is that such a combination works
so well.
For the first portion of the album, tracks like “Club
Montepulciano” (the album’s first single), “Eden” and “Dictionary”
continue to thrill the listener and cause them to marvel at the
band’s work. However, this proves to be the band’s curse as well;
as
Blue Wonder Powder Milk settles in with several more songs
in exactly the same vein, the pattern begins to get old quickly.
Songs like “Electro Shock Faders” and “Lung,” which otherwise would
have likely stood out on the album, become a blur all too
quickly.
To Hooverphonic’s credit, they do inject new life into the album
on “This Strange Effect,” though I can’t figure out for the life of
me why this song struck me as noteworthy more than several others
on the album. Nevertheless, by the time “Magenta” and the album’s
uncredited thirteenth track kick in, the musical blur starts up
again.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the songs on
Blue Wonder Powder Milk are bad; in fact, it was refreshing
to hear an album that concentrated on melody more than volume,
something I don’t often hear these days. It’s just that by sticking
with one particular style of songwriting and performing,
Hooverphonic, in effect, become their own worst enemy. Had there
been a little more variety in the songwriting, this album could
have been that much better.
Blue Wonder Powder Milk is still very much worth your
attention and money, for it is an album that plows some new ground.
And had they not kept working on the same parcel of land throughout
the album, it could have raised up to the next level. Still,
there’s a lot of promise in this group.