{"id":19527,"date":"2020-09-26T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19527"},"modified":"2020-08-27T16:14:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T20:14:23","slug":"album-review-librarians-with-hickeys-long-overdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/26\/album-review-librarians-with-hickeys-long-overdue\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Librarians With Hickeys \u2013 Long Overdue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-19528\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/librarians.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/librarians.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/librarians-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/librarians-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>I\u2019m a pushover for the big, chiming guitar sound that characterized Big Star and many of the \u201cpaisley underground\u201d (or <i>Children of Nuggets<\/i>, if you prefer) bands that eventually followed in their wake. And a mere five seconds into \u201cUntil There Was You,\u201d the opening track on Librarians With Hickeys\u2019 <i>Long Overdue<\/i>, I knew I had found another set of practitioners of that approach.<\/p>\n<p>The band\u2019s vocals, led by guitarist Ray Carmen, have an everyman quality, assuming everyman could sing in tune like Carmen can. The tunes are uncluttered, straightforward affairs with interesting touches \u2013 inventive middle eights, for example \u2013 and accessible lyrics. The group is mostly about the guitar\/bass\/drum aesthetic, but some carefully-placed keyboard textures add to the record\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n<p>The delightfully jangling \u201cThat Time is Now\u201d features additional vocals by Lisa Mychols, a power pop artiste in her own right (look for a review of her latest here soon). Mychols\u2019 sweet pipes add just the right note to Carmen\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n<p>The sonic characteristics of the songs vary to the point that <i>Long Overdue<\/i> sounds a bit like a compilation; there\u2019s a slight lack of unity in the production aesthetic. But that\u2019s not to suggest that any of it is subpar, only that it\u2019s inconsistent. And perhaps the only \u201coff\u201d quality on the entire collection is the (synthesized?) saxophone intro and fill work on \u201cNext Time.\u201d The texture seems out of place on the album, and the song isn\u2019t enhanced by its presence.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of strong moments that more than offset that, though. The wide-screen arrangement of \u201cObsession\u201d is impressive, and the garage-punky combo organ of \u201cLeave Me Alone\u201d shows a different side of the band. \u201cPoor Reception\u201d sounds like across between The Music Explosion and \u201880s college rock, which is to say it\u2019s very nice indeed.<\/p>\n<p>The band is effective on more contemplative numbers like \u201cAlex,\u201d but Librarians With Hickeys are on more solid footing with simmering-then-soaring rockers like \u201cLooking for Home.\u201d The latter is one of the strongest cuts on <i>Long Overdue<\/i>. The band takes things home with the insistent, sweeping \u201cBlack Velvet Dress,\u201d a strong finish to an enjoyable record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m a pushover for the big, chiming guitar sound that characterized Big Star and many of the \u201cpaisley underground\u201d (or Children of Nuggets, if you prefer) bands that eventually followed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,55,62,65],"tags":[4161,4301],"class_list":["post-19527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-big-stir-records","tag-librarians-with-hickeys","cat-49-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19529,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527\/revisions\/19529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}