Will Hanson – Hope On Top – Review
I think this is a first for me. I have heard, and seen, many, many, many different musical instruments in performance but this may be the first time I’ve heard a musical saw being used. Will Hanson uses it liberally in this collection of nine, um, unique (?) songs. I’m hesitant to say unique because I’m sure somewhere someone else has written a song about a serial killer who dismembers his female victims in an attempt to create the perfect girlfriend (Girlfriend Materials) but I can’t think of one off hand. Hanson can only be called one-of-a-kind, a singer/songwriter who sounds like he would be more suited to writing songs for Marilyn Manson if Manson was a folk singer. That being said, it’s really hard to pigeon-hole Hanson into neat little categories, I’ve read him described as a Goth/folk/horror/indie songwriter but I don’t think that’s fair. I mean, I don’t think Goth is a term I would ever use to describe these songs. They have dark themes, at least some do, but the arrangements aren’t dark, in fact songs like This New World, We Don’t Live In Sitcoms, Black Lungs or the instrumental Home have more in common with Death Cab For Cutie, or traditional folk than with anything from the Goth world.
The album opener, Home, is steeped in traditional folk with what can only be described as his signature sound of the musical saw and glockenspiel filling the background. It is both poignant and eerie, the saw adding an almost theremin sounding echo juxtaposed with the innocence and almost childlike quality of the glockenspiel. Watching You Fade starts off sweetly enough with an accordion introducing the lyrics, “Forgotten what you look like, I’ve forgotten how you sound” but don’t let this sweet sorrow fool you because by the end of the song he’s ranting “That group that you call friends, yeah, and I hate them with my life, my hate for them transcends (can’t hear the next word), so hurry give me a knife”. The aforementioned, Girlfriend Materials, isn’t as macabre as you would think, it really is a love song to his reassembled amore, Phoebe (“Phoebe, do you hear me, Phoebe, do you hear me call?”). “Timeball” reminded me, somewhat, of the acoustic version of “Polly” by Nirvana although I don’t remember hearing Kurt Cobain singing about “a life that you once knew as 20 tons of goo”. And the final song, Black Lungs is a soothing night-cap to the scary movie that is this album, or so you would think, but Hanson doesn’t let you off the hook that easy. Even though it is like a lullaby, the lyrics deal with the break-up of his relationship and the freedom he feels. “…so leave now, to your house, and think of, what you’ve lost, not much, to speak of, I’m (back from), of trapness, now I’m breathing”.
I really liked this CD, it’s been getting a lot of play by all family members. I like the way Hanson uses the musical saw and glockenspiel and even harmonica to set an eerie atmosphere that carries throughout the album, linking the songs into a cohesive B-horror movie whole. It’s nice to have an album where the flow from song to song is consistent and almost seamless. A lot of albums now-a-days just seem to jump from single to single with a bunch of filler in between. These songs are all tied together and work individually as well as a whole. And even though the subject matter is more suited to the Gothic Archies than to Bob Dylan, it’s nice to hear traditional folk reworked in untraditional ways. And, really, how can you not like a glockenspiel? I mean, really. The only complaint I have is that, at times, Hanson’s accent makes it difficult to understand some words, that and the fact that the orchestration sometimes gets in the way. Otherwise, this is a really good, solid album.
You can find Will Hanson on MySpace, Last.FM, iTunes, or you can buy selected tracks from Indiestore.
Will Hanson – Girlfriend Materials
Will Hanson – Black Lungs
Will Hanson – We Don’t Live In Sitcoms
I wonder if this guy knows about the Musical Saw Festival in NYC (http://www.musicalsawfestival.org ) – he should play there.