‘Bad Bad Hats’ by Big Bad Hats
‘Bad Bad Hats’ by Big Bad Hats
Every popular artist, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Minneapolis indie-pop band Bad Bad Hats, has reckoned with how much to heed fan complaints and suggestions. Doyle responded by bringing back Sherlock Holmes years after sending the detective to his death; BBH responded by letting its fanbase influence its homonymous fourth album.
After the stylistic expansion of 2021’s Walkman, there are still surprises on Bad Bad Hats. The opener, “Let Me In,” lays a subwoofer-rattling beat and a Breeders “Cannonball” bassline under frontwoman Kerry Alexander’s feathery melodicism, making contemporary-pop irritations like pitch-shifted vocals sparkle as if they’re vending-machine charms dangling from a handcrafted bracelet.
There are a lot of little charms like that—moments shoplifted from the collective pop memory—throughout 10 songs that do not forsake Bad Bad Hats’ history of catchiness (“Midway,” from the group’s 2015 debut album, Psychic Reader, is unforgettably endearing), created by Alexander, husband and bassist Chris Hoge, and (now former) drummer Con Davison.
With confidence gained, apparently, from Walkman and listener feedback, the band stops at the intersection of Paramore and gothic New Wave in “Back to My Body”; whistles through the pop-punk forest in “Meter Run”; and gets wistful via an imagined electro-discotheque remix of Britpop in “Bored in the Summer.”
Yet there are two distinct standouts on Bad Bad Hats.
The first is contained, though not constrained, in “TPA.” Alexander crosscuts angular, nerve-jangling guitar against a boulevard-cruising beat and an intelligent goofiness right across that boulevard from Tom Tom Club—and Alexander’s unusually Wayfarer-cool vocals echo both TTC’s Tina Weymouth and David Byrne, Weymouth’s Talking Heads bandmate.
The second happens in the closer, “Happy,” when the simplicity of love and friendship guide Alexander to the tender breeziness at which Bad Bad Hats often excels. “Happy” and “TPA” are proof enough that this band is paying attention to its fans in the right ways.
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Get Bad Bad Hats on Amazon here.
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