Hippo Campus do country right.
A great philosopher once said that there were only two kinds of good music – country and western.
Despite only having a niche appeal outside of its American home, there are still however plenty of folks willing to set you straight on its pervasive influence on fashion, art and culture, even if over here the general reaction is one of amusement.
With over 900 million streams under their belt, Minnesotan quintet Hippo Campus would seem to be unlikely adoptees of Nashville’s aesthetics, especially if the lacquered pop of their last album LP3 is anything to go by.
But the band say that each of the five tracks that make up Wasteland all in some way take inspiration from its relatable aspects — the directness, the melancholy, the rearguard action between tradition and modernity’s erosion of it.
The most obvious distillation of this is on Yippie Ki Yay, a tune that Hippo Campus singer Jake Luppen claims the band have been working on for six years.
Doused in a glum, rippling guitar riff, lines from the Badlands such as, ‘Shot my horse in the opening scene/Been chased for the last three weeks’, lend it a weight that goes beyond a lazy homage.
Of the rest, Honeysuckle lands most closely to Hippo Campus’ more recent output, but the starlit piano and breakup angst of Probably show a less seen vulnerable side filled with unfashionable regret.
We often forget when laughing down our sleeves at assorted rhinestone cowboys and girls however that one of planet’s biggest stars comes from that territory, so it’s fitting that the two most accessible songs are ones Swifties could tag along with on their lunch break.
Here opener Moonshine and its breathless chorus might unashamedly sit anywhere in the orbit of Folklore, whilst at the opposite end the cheesy Kick In The Teeth could slot into the same space on Red.
There are more than two kinds of good music of course but on Wilderness, Hippo Campus show that they can craft pop from more than just the modern world’s base elements of software and cynicism.
And the results are definitely Yippie Ky Yay.
