Hippo Campus Release ‘Flood,’ Their Greatest Album Yet
September 20, 2024 - By Psychic Hotline
Today, in the midst of playing sold-out release parties across the country, Hippo Campus unveil Flood: 13 songs captured in 10 days on the Texas border, showing how four people connected so intimately for so long can evolve as individuals, while preserving the bond that makes what they do together so damn special. Confidently hailed as their best album ever, Flood filters the whiplash and anxieties of adulthood through the type of absorbing arrangements and massive hooks that can only be pulled off by best friends who’ve been speaking the same musical, emotional language since they were kids.
“The Midwest indie rock band’s fourth full-length album, which drops today, is a product of therapy, getting older, and facing up to what was and was not working for them,” says GQ, in a new interview with singer Jake Luppen, guitarist Nathan Stocker, drummer Whistler Allen and bassist Zach Sutton. “Flood is marked by sharp lyrics and groovy riffs that borrow from psychedelia, folk, and more accessible pop music. But the difference between Flood and their first three albums is how grown-up it sounds.”
Produced by Caleb Wright (Charly Bliss, Samia) and Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee), Flood’s creation process began what now feels like an epoch ago, until the band realized they didn’t actually like what they were making. They had written more than 100 songs, but decided to surrender five years of work, drop all preconceptions of how they thought they had to sound, decamped to Sonic Ranch studios, and committed each other to recording what they all liked best – no second guessing or listening back, only forward momentum.
The result is a body of irresistible, spring-loaded songs about self-criticism and self-forgiveness, empowerment and falling short of expectations, failed relationships and finding a way forward. The feelings are raw, real and unguarded, backed by subtle key changes and tempo shifts, innate sophistication and the emphatic spirit of experimentation that Hippo Campus have always been able to present so effortlessly.
Order The Hi-Fi Online Exclusive Vinyl of Flood Here
