When Hurry expanded to a trio for 2014’s *Everything/Nothing**, *there were two ways to view Matt Scottoline’s formerly solo project. One: a solid Philadelphia band making fuzzy, mid-fi indie rock. The other was as an offshoot of Everyone Everywhere, who released two of the first truly outstanding albums from emo's fourth wave, albeit ones that predated 2013’s mini-explosion of "revival" trendwatching by at least a year. Taken in combination, those two views could work against Scottoline: there are damn near hundreds of solid bands in Philadelphia making fuzzy, mid-fi indie rock and only one Everyone Everywhere, whose near total inactivity since 2012 feels like more of a semi-permanent hiatus than a result of their methodical work ethic.
Hurry's third LP Guided Meditation sounds like a credibility bid for Scottoline's fledgling new band. The cover might be a Brian Eno homage, but there is no magical "Enoxification" happening here. Their success is in their ability to be serious about frivolity, which could be an oblique strategy all its own. The difference is entirely present within a rerecorded version of “Shake It Off," which appeared on a stacked 2015 six-way charity split that damn nears as a mini-*Singles *soundtrack for Philadelphia. Perhaps they figured since it would be associated with Taylor Swift anyways, “Shake It Off" removes anything that made the original sound bashful—the unnecessary feedback is sheared, the performance is significantly tightened, Scottoline’s vocals aren’t subject to the same fuzz as the guitars. And there you go: Hurry decided they’re really a power-pop band at heart, not indie rock.
Regardless of how much Scottoline’s beloved Yo La Tengo or Guided By Voices influenced the writing of *Guided Meditation, *this is more in the lineage of the Posies and Matthew Sweet, acts who would’ve been considered pure *pop *had they existed in a different decade or just simply sold more records. And like them, Scottoline writes from a position of weakness, of being “dumb and in love" and not always both at the same time: he’s incapable of handling life due to the prospect of a new crush on “Fascination" (“overthink and overplan imagining you hold my hand"), uses relationships as a shield from life’s responsibilities (“Under Her Thumb"), retreats the moment those responsibilities start piling up (“Nothing to Say") and ends Guided Meditation wishing for a kind of zen existence that requires nothing out of him (“I Wanna Be You").
They’re adolescent feelings that don’t really ever go away and Scottoline honors them by letting them speak for themselves. Likewise, Hurry doesn’t overcomplicate things musically—they abide by the Weezer Method that states all vocal melodies should sound good as guitar leads and that instant gratification can be replicable gratification. Hurry are capable of expanse and modest grandeur, though like Everyone Everywhere, they find a kind of psychedelia in everyday fatigue—“Love is Elusive" cruises through six-and-a-half minutes of flanger clouds towards a sunburst of layered harmonies and “Nothing to Say" feels like companion piece to Everyone Everywhere’s definitive “I Feel Exhausted" if cubicle-bound anxiety was traded for a three-beer daze at happy hour.
But music this reliant on simple pleasures is also inherently risky. If the melodies don’t connect, there isn’t much to fall back on and occasionally *Guided Meditation *harkens back to Hurry’s less distinct previous work. Still, the lack of punk or emo or played-out '90s touchstones (i.e., Pavement or Dinosaur Jr.) in Guided Meditation makes it at least something close to novel in 2016. Fittingly, the most easygoing and instantly ingratiating song here ("When I'm With You") shares a title with Best Coast. As with Crazy for You, *Guided Meditation *can be accused of being too simplistic, too sweet and unengaged with the present. But, really: isn't being dumb and in love the most uncomplicated state of being? So when Scottoline sings, “I don’t even have to try when I’m with you/All the stupid things I say, you know they’re true," it damn sure sounds like the truth.
