A great value, but slightly odd album that might surprise you... (The Trick To Life - The Hoosiers)

Member Name: potoroo99

Product:	The Trick To Life - The Hoosiers
Date:	20/09/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Catchy, fun tracks, variety of styles, great value

Disadvantages: Maybe too catchy

I know that many people had said that The Hoosiers write some catchy songs, but I'm not sure its possible to explain how extremely catchy they are. I am very uncharacteristically writing this review in the morning, as I played The Hoosiers album last night, and several of the songs are still in my head now! I didn't buy the album when it first came out, but more recently I started listening to a couple of Hoosiers songs more often on youtube. I considered downloading a few tracks from AmazonMP3 (a fantastic download site I have also reviewed), but I found the album very cheaply in the internet, so I thought it was well worth purchasing the CD.

The Band

The Hoosiers are really quite a young band, this is their first an only album, which reached number 1 in the UK album chart. It contains their 4 singles "Worried About Ray", "Worst Case Scenario", "Cops and Robbers" and "Goodbye Mr A", the later being the song which I first heard. The band members are Irwin Sparkes (vocals, guitar), Alphonso Sharland (drums, percussion), and Martin Skarendahl (bass guitar, acoustic guitar). They come from Reading, Exeter and Stockholm, but the band name is from a colloquial term for citizen of Indiana, USA, from when Alphonso and Irwin (the one that looks like Ben Stiller) stayed there for a while after school. I find it difficult to pin down the genre, but its a mixture of soft rock and indie pop. I can compare them to Mika and ELO, but with a stronger drum beat. Irwin Sparkes' vocals are also reminiscent of Jeff Buckley.

The track listing is as follows;
1. "Worried About Ray"
2. "Worst Case Scenario"
3. "Run Rabbit Run"
4. "Goodbye Mr A"
5. "A Sadness Runs Through Him"
6. "Clinging on for Life"
7. "Cops and Robbers"
8. "Everything Goes Dark"
9. "Killer"
10. "The Trick to Life"
11. "Money to Be Made"
12. "The Feeling You Get When" (Hidden track)

The Songs

"Goodbye Mr A" and "Worried About Ray" were their first two most successful singles. I find them to be fun, fast and upbeat,but musically a little too similar to each other. When I first heard "Goodbye Mr A", I wanted to hear I again, but didn't really understand it. The superhero video points towards comic book hero Mr. A., but it all made much more sense to me if Mr A is a strict school teacher.

"Cops and Robbers", "Killer", "Worst Case Scenario" and "The Trick to Life" are all still fast paced tracks with good beats, they are also catchy, but a bit harsher and more mainstream. "The Trick to Life" is more serious and well worth listening to, but my favourite of these is "Worst Case Scenario", as I think the lyrics are clever. As with most of the Hoosiers songs, the topics are more interesting than the usual 'boy/girl relationship' or 'night out' written about in most pop songs.

"A Sadness Runs Through Him", "Clinging on for Life", "Everything Goes Dark", "Money to Be Made" and "Run Rabbit Run" are all slower and less 'happy'. I not a music expert, but it sound like they are sung lower and more softly in a minor key rather than a major, there are even violins! Individually, I don't like the songs of this style as much as the faster songs (except "A Sadness Runs Through Him", which is my favourite song on the album), but I think the album benefits greatly from this variety of tempo and style.

The hidden track 12 ("The Feeling You Get When") it only repeats 2 lines "You sent the sun round the earth, made me feel twice what I'm worth" but is mostly instrumental with a few orchestral instruments. It is very different to the others, but I actually rather enjoy it. I did have a problem with hidden track, once the music was loaded onto my laptop (windows media player). As it is not a separate track, but an extension after a short pause on "Money to be Made", so I cannot put the 2 in separate playlists.

Album Art

The album art is a quite interesting and recognisable graphic design, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the band or the songs. The CD was originally released in four colours (blue, green, red and yellow), I think this is a nice touch, but don't worry as the the CDs all have the same set of tracks inside. They also released a purple version, but this was a special release containing 2 bonus tracks that is only available in the itunes store, not as a CD.

Conclusion

It may not be the best album ever, but it is fun, catchy and contains a good variety of music. The value is excellent, I particularly like 4 songs and got the whole album on ebay for less than the cost downloading two.

Summary: Definitely looking forward the The Hoosiers' next album.