Hippies

Sometimes it's enough to write really catchy and fun songs and play them with a minimum of fuss. Harlem has done that on Hippies, and for that, they deserve all kinds of praise.

Quite who Harlem can hope to appeal to, in the UK at least, when music fans here are evidently besotted with sci-fi nonsense one minute and cleverly articulated kitchen-sink dramas the next is anyone's guess. Best to quit the questioning, though, and get down with the rollicking jams they're kicking out regardless of how many people are listening.

Hippies is an uncomplicated, brilliant LP about what it's like to be young, stoned and having A REALLY GOOD TIME while not coming across like you're a complete tool.

With drunken charm and incessant jangle, Hippies may be Harlem's slop-pop consummation.

Good songs, great times, and maybe it's a bit too long and short on variety but whatever. Plus, this record actually came out months ago and none of the songs have soured yet. That's something.

The album has no song that truly feels like a single, and thus no particularly strong cuts ground the album.

Hippies is a no-frills garage-rock record that is fun and energetic, and the utter lack of pretence is a breath of fresh air in this era of overproduced corporate drivel.

The music on Hippies is formulaic, but in their ability to work so perfectly within a rigid aesthetic, Harlem hint at real songwriting ability.

Hippies is sloppy and likeable, but the album's tuneful, two-minute blasts of three-chord pop aren't in the least bit dangerous.

When listening to Hippies, it's difficult to forget that Harlem have professed their love for Nirvana, and still more difficult to suppress the urge to tell them to turn down that bass already.

You can chock the long track list up to zeal, because Harlem gives that off in spades on this album. They don't sound hidden and bored behind all the haze, but instead work their way through it, and in the end offer up a solid record with Hippies.

In some ways Hippies recalls the bare, unassuming simplicity of three-chord punk by groups like the Ramones, and while it never attains that level of near-mindless glee, its haphazard mashing of styles creates an infectious if transient blend of songs.

It's simple fare, true, but wholly enjoyable for it. [Jun 2010, p.124]

Hippies is hardly song focused, the record's 16 tracks tend to mesh together into a blurry, tape-fueled haze--there aren't any obvious highlights here.