I always promised myself I would start this blog with a post about HUM if I ever actually started it. The reason for that is that I always promised myself to do a blog whenever I was listening to HUM. That train of thought never made any sense to me either so I just never bothered to pick this up. That is until I was reading Kei Yasui’s blog a couple days back. Infamous for his input in HAVE HEART and now infamous for bringing up QUICKSAND, FAILURE and HUM in one blog entry. Some mindboggling shit right there. That almost made me go just as crazy as the time I found out my main bro Chasarion was secretly into this band as well. For more on that check his first podcast. Don’t ask me why but I always get stoked when I find out other core kids are into HUM.
For some reason I can’t really remember when I first heard of them but they must’ve crossed my path at one time or another ‘cause I sorta knew what I was in for when I picked up DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD just about a year ago. De Kaft, Ghent, a used copy for 4.75€. That place always has the weirdest prices and everything in their bargain bin is 2.75€. Unless they have a huge stash of 5 cent and 20 cent pieces somewhere I can imagine these guys run out of spare change every once in a while. One time they did have this 1€ sale and I picked up the BOTH WORLDS full length. That was sweet but a completely different story so back to HUM.
This band instantly hit home for me and they sounded really familiar but I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I dug up that HOPESFALL record from a couple of years back, the one that sounded all spacey and shit. Good record but a blatant ripoff nonetheless. I actually wish they still did this half-decent HUM tribute instead of putting out shitty albums with their own shitty songs. But that’s all water under the bridge now and it’s not really considered cool to be into any HOPESFALL so yeah… nevermind.
DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD is the last record that really ‘clicked’ with me. I can still tell if I’m listening to good or bad music but at a certain age it’s just getting harder to connect to music on a personal level. As a teenager in shitty times you just cling on to whatever you’re hearing all the while giving it a nostalgic level that doesn’t really hit you until you’re grown up. That kind of crap is part of the music-as-a-trigger-theory I firmly believe in. Even though I never heard this record prior to last year it still had the same effect on me like all of those teenhood classics I was clinging on to. I mostly listen to this when I’m biking back home from work after a late shift so the setting might help as well. Picture a rural scenery with a bunch of stars and me wondering what the fuck is out there. This record happens to be the perfect soundtrack for wondering what the fuck is out there. Somewhere halfway my ride I can see the streetlights of the suburbs of my shitty town from a distance and it all makes sense somehow. Listening to this also brought back this vision of an ideal world I had when I was like 10 years old. Just me lying in the greenest grass imaginable, looking up to the bluest of blue skies. There’d be the occasional fluffy white cloud and I knew that if I ever got up there’d be a place called home waiting. I just never felt like getting up though…. And that’s the kind of comforting stuff that comes back to me when I’m listening to DW=HW. Soothing shit. Who the fuck needs therapy?
As far as an actual review goes I can give you some random keywords like: layered, textured, walls, of, sound. Basically just post grunge going space rock on us. It comes of as natural as if they started jamming and someone accidentally pressed rec. but on the other hand you just know that every effect pedal was used with a purpose and every sonic detail was carefully analyzed and discussed. This record didn’t pop out of thin air but it’s greatness lies in the fact that you believe it did. Na’mean?
Random fun fact courtesy of wikipedia: after DW=HW was released HUM was hand-picked to do a cover of invisible sun, and that just so happens to be my favourite POLICE song. But apparently Sting himself decided to go all reggae with his own song right before HUM was scheduled to record. If it wasn’t for most of SYNCHRONICITY and GHOST IN THE MACHINE I’d definitely hate that guy. I still, however, back the ‘someone please give Sting his balls back’ review I once read for one of his Disney (barf) soundtracks.
Peace!
For some reason I can’t really remember when I first heard of them but they must’ve crossed my path at one time or another ‘cause I sorta knew what I was in for when I picked up DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD just about a year ago. De Kaft, Ghent, a used copy for 4.75€. That place always has the weirdest prices and everything in their bargain bin is 2.75€. Unless they have a huge stash of 5 cent and 20 cent pieces somewhere I can imagine these guys run out of spare change every once in a while. One time they did have this 1€ sale and I picked up the BOTH WORLDS full length. That was sweet but a completely different story so back to HUM.
This band instantly hit home for me and they sounded really familiar but I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I dug up that HOPESFALL record from a couple of years back, the one that sounded all spacey and shit. Good record but a blatant ripoff nonetheless. I actually wish they still did this half-decent HUM tribute instead of putting out shitty albums with their own shitty songs. But that’s all water under the bridge now and it’s not really considered cool to be into any HOPESFALL so yeah… nevermind.
DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD is the last record that really ‘clicked’ with me. I can still tell if I’m listening to good or bad music but at a certain age it’s just getting harder to connect to music on a personal level. As a teenager in shitty times you just cling on to whatever you’re hearing all the while giving it a nostalgic level that doesn’t really hit you until you’re grown up. That kind of crap is part of the music-as-a-trigger-theory I firmly believe in. Even though I never heard this record prior to last year it still had the same effect on me like all of those teenhood classics I was clinging on to. I mostly listen to this when I’m biking back home from work after a late shift so the setting might help as well. Picture a rural scenery with a bunch of stars and me wondering what the fuck is out there. This record happens to be the perfect soundtrack for wondering what the fuck is out there. Somewhere halfway my ride I can see the streetlights of the suburbs of my shitty town from a distance and it all makes sense somehow. Listening to this also brought back this vision of an ideal world I had when I was like 10 years old. Just me lying in the greenest grass imaginable, looking up to the bluest of blue skies. There’d be the occasional fluffy white cloud and I knew that if I ever got up there’d be a place called home waiting. I just never felt like getting up though…. And that’s the kind of comforting stuff that comes back to me when I’m listening to DW=HW. Soothing shit. Who the fuck needs therapy?
As far as an actual review goes I can give you some random keywords like: layered, textured, walls, of, sound. Basically just post grunge going space rock on us. It comes of as natural as if they started jamming and someone accidentally pressed rec. but on the other hand you just know that every effect pedal was used with a purpose and every sonic detail was carefully analyzed and discussed. This record didn’t pop out of thin air but it’s greatness lies in the fact that you believe it did. Na’mean?
Random fun fact courtesy of wikipedia: after DW=HW was released HUM was hand-picked to do a cover of invisible sun, and that just so happens to be my favourite POLICE song. But apparently Sting himself decided to go all reggae with his own song right before HUM was scheduled to record. If it wasn’t for most of SYNCHRONICITY and GHOST IN THE MACHINE I’d definitely hate that guy. I still, however, back the ‘someone please give Sting his balls back’ review I once read for one of his Disney (barf) soundtracks.
Peace!
These are the vids to the only singles this album spawned.
HUM-COMING HOME
HUM-GREEN TO ME
HUM-COMING HOME
HUM-GREEN TO ME
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