ALBUM REVIEW: Flower Crown - Hypnausea
Doused in reverb and eerie delay, Pennsylvania’s Flower Crown puts out what they described as “something dreamy, something lush, and something warm in tone to match the winding down of the summer heat and to welcome back the brisk fall weather” - the debut EP titled Hypnausea. Consisting of Richie Colosimo and Aaron Mook, they create a nice, chilled end-of-summer jam to put on.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that the vocals are low in the mix, with the music being up-front and center. Consequently, this shifts the attention from the lyrics towards just the music and the atmosphere it creates. The guitars are, as the band promises, “jangly” that wave in and out of tune. Coupled with the effects layered on each track, the guitars have this dream-like quality that you can easily space out to. It’s the kind of sound that’s like a gentle massage against your cheek. The drumming is understated, with quiet beats rolled along with rim shots and soft cymbal hits and crashes, that actually simmer more than anything else. The vocals, it seems, took a page from My Bloody Valentine with the lowly mixed vocals, but that’s not a bad thing.
The vocals are done in such a way that they really mesh well with the music. The lyrics aren’t totally indecipherable, but when listening it sounds like a blanketed synth that rolls over rollicking tunes like “The Wedding Singer” or provides wonderful melodies over a song like “Hypnausea.”
When the band chooses to throw their listeners for loops, such as the wonderful horn lead in the bridge of the single “Sunflowers,” it makes for a really great sound that, unfortunately, appears for just a bridge. It’s that kind of musicality that really helps a song like “Sunflowers” live up to its potential. The EP is fairly short with five songs that all stick with the dream-pop sound, but at around twenty minutes, it’s a pleasant enough album that you won’t get tired with it.
Overall, it’s a good debut effort and I’m looking forward to a full-length release from the band in the future to see how they can expand their sound on future releases.
BEST SONGS: “The Wedding Singer,” “Fuck John Cusack,” “Sunflowers”
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