Let’s face it, you’ve got to be a pretty ballsy act to even consider naming yourselves Happyness, misspelling and all.
Half the general public will consider you some sort of hippy and/or Krishna drop outs trying to wash their brain, the other will probably take you for ironic doom-metallers with a penchant for odes to cannibalistic faeries. Either way you reckon, getting people to jump to hasty conclusions is the inevitable outcome of adopting this kind of moniker.
The real Happyness are, of course, less morally threatening than either of those options – although probably closer to the former – being a trio from South London that have been almost constantly on Live4ever’s radar since emerging three or four years ago. Now colour us cynical, but few hypes deliver, so it was with no little joy that we reported their first outing Weird Little Birthday sounded like something squeezed out from the US post grunge college circuit, a grab bag of sweetness and oddball goofery that was just a melody or two short of minor classic status.
Last year’s five track Tunnel Vision On Your Part EP didn’t quite reach that peak – although the sparkling Anna, Lisa Calls echoed Teenage Fanclub at their Biggest Star apex – but it certainly had the feel of songwriters about to make some kind of creative leap, one the good natured torpor of their debut had suggested was at best an evens wager.
Along with the title track, it makes the grade here again too, both lessons well worth repeating. But the real question they raised then and now was just what sort of company they would find on Write In, particularly whether the threesome were going to grasp the nettle by dropping some of their more opaque sentiments and acting a little more grown up.
The step up – or sideways – begins with opener Falling Down, its wheezy organ outro and gentle arpeggios the sort of velvet Americana now finding so much favour with audiences of, for instance, The War On Drugs. This slightly laconic feel continues on The Reel Starts Again (Man As Ostrich), underscored by a desultory piano, sluggishly fretted guitar and singer Benji Compston’s enervated falsetto, whilst the naked light bulb country of Victor Lazzaro’s Heart takes Happyness Part II to a place of content and rest that their slacker nature had never previously hinted at.
As they’ve suggested themselves, Write In is much more about the songs than bending a series of in-joke metaphors satisfyingly out of shape. This means sometimes more structure, sometimes less so, but always a reference, no matter how oblique (the alt.Rundgrenisms of Uptrend/Style Raids, the Dinosaur Jr-esque feedback soaked glamour-sludge of Bigger Glass Less Full) although Compston’s pulse never seems to rise that much above just-woke-up on much of it.
Frustratingly, at times it still feels like waiting around for something to happen, but the real lift off moment does eventually come with The C is A B A G, a wonderful slow burning detour that reveals the band capable of far greater subtlety, the kind of poise and verve which may yet drag them reluctantly onto grander stages.
As a marker of goodness, Write In remains however just that bit inconclusive; substantively better than its predecessor (which was pretty great), whilst bearing odd repetitions of its flaws, albeit on a lesser scale. Happyness seem to be comfortable living with this continuum: their talent is undoubted, the patience needed to follow them along the path to fulfilled potential even more so.
Still, it’s a great name.
