I get that every Hop Along review zeroes in on Frances Quinlan’s singular vocal delivery, and everybody who’s already read something about this band is sick of words like “urgency” and “intensity.” This isn’t even the first Hop Along review that starts with a paragraph about how all the other Hop Along reviews spend a lot of (maybe too much?) time emphasising the singing aspect of the operation. The fourth wall of Hop Along reviews has already been kicked down and stomped on, and here I am making snow angels in the rubble.
But maybe engaging the already-initiated shouldn’t be my top priority right this second? ‘Cos clearly not enough people know about Hop Along.
You’d think one of the best songs of any genre from the last decade (“Tibetan Pop Stars” off 2012’s Get Disowned), their rightly-acclaimed latest Bark Your Head Off, Dog, and Saddle Creek’s promotional budget would’ve pushed the Philadelphia outfit over the “next big thing” hump into the more lucrative realm of “big thing” by now. Instead, they’re closer to a pretty big thing.
Now, the fact that there was plenty of open space in which to comfortably stand towards the back of the room at Royale on Thursday night (May 3) doesn’t mean much. The front of the room was appropriately claustrophobia-inducing, and filling a 1,000-person capacity venue is a tough sell for any indie rock act unless they’re doing something like playing folk-punk in the famously folk-punk-loving city of Boston. Still, I shouldn’t have been able to experience multiple Thursday afternoon conversations that unfolded as some iteration of:
“Doing anything tonight?”
“Finally seeing Hop Along, actually. I’m pretty stoked!”
“…….(Blank Stare).”
Getting back to Quinlan’s voice, her thing is anecdotes meshed with abstraction (or are they anecdotal abstractions?) parlayed with a sweetness that intermittently cracks and splits into a near-growl. It’s a sound to behold, and anyone except the singer-songwriter herself who says they know when to expect the schism is a fool and a liar. Cases and point: On Thursday, a tinge of menace simmered underneath the lyrics of essentially upbeat songs like “Somewhere a Judge” and “Prior Things.” The chorus of “What The Writer Meant” packed a similar oomph, although “God is the one, god is the one, god is the one who changed,” kinda does sound more like a lyric one would yell intuitively.
Anyway, the founding member wasn’t the lone source of unpredictability.
Eddie Van Halen was not onhand to toss a monster solo in here and there, but via the dexterous guitar work of Joe Reinhart, it sounded as such. In fact the whole quartet — plus Chrissy Tashjian from fellow Philly-area music organization Thin Lips on auxiliary instruments — performed a set a reviewer could misleadingly, but accurately, describe in the same manner they would a heavy metal demonstration. That kinda goes back to why I don’t get why Hop Along aren’t more famous. They’re doing literate rock music that embraces the full scope of the human emotional spectrum whilst simultaneously “kicking ass,” for lack of a better term, in the same general sense that the bands Beavis and Butthead really like kick ass. You’re telling me there’s not a massive market for that?
Extra things we learned during Thursday’s between-song banter: Way back in the day, Hop Along met the person who became their first booking agent at an Allston warehouse show. It might’ve been the one on Rugg Road, but it also might not have been the one on Rugg Road. Hop Along’s favorite Boston band is either The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Modern Lovers, Karate, Speedy Ortiz, or Palehound. We also learned that opening act Saintseneca definitely performs music in a professional capacity.
Barry Thompson just got arrested by the music journalism police and is in music journalism jail. He may tweet about his upcoming trial @barelytomson.