On Reasons to Live, the full-length debut by the Brooklyn punk-rock duo Hilly Eye, singer-guitarist Amy Klein repeatedly returns to images of emotional violence in her lyrics that initially seem like postcards from the edge of an especially awful and parasitic romantic coupling. But Klein, an ex-member of New Jersey rockers Titus Andronicus, tilts her hand just enough to imply that it could also be nation, rather than just a person, that’s left her feeling equal parts enraged and empathetic.
Amid the scuffed-up beauty of dime-store guitars rubbing up against Catherine Tung's brutalized drum kit, Klein seethes about deception in "American Rail" with a personal sense of betrayal: "In my dreams/ I believe all the lies you told me," she sings, in a voice that sounds both confessional and accusatory. On the dreamy travelogue "Louisville", she echoes the pleas of a forgotten underclass: "Don't bring me down/ Higher than the water/ Don’t bring me down/ I don't want to lose my ground." This neglect explodes into physical abuse on "Double Dutch", where Klein spits, "I can see all the marks that your arms left on me/ I can see what you are."
Or, you know, Klein could be singing about some asshole she's happy to have rid herself of. Even when she tiptoes precariously close to making A Statement-- like on the album-opening "Way Back When", a lilting folk-rock number that alludes to a returning soldier's difficult homecoming-- she always keeps one foot tucked safely in ambiguity. Hilly Eye songs are built on simple, opaque lines that are transformed into stinging slogans; on "Animal", the money line is "All the boys who get beaten up/ all the girls who get beaten down," which Klein delivers as a manic yelp and a churlish taunt over guitars that similarly oscillate alternating shades of pretty and ugly.
Lyrically, Reasons to Live is pitched somewhere between an angry breakup record and an ethereal, post-psychedelic protest screed. Musically, it seems to have been purposely constructed to deny easy satisfaction-- or satisfaction of any kind, really. If the meaning of these songs is difficult to pin down, so is their emotional core. Hilly Eye's primary musical characteristic-- the soft-loud dynamics of Klein and Tung's untrained harmonies and their pummeling, near-amateurish instrumental attack-- is the oldest trick in the indie-rock handbook. The lack of technique gives Reasons to Live an unfinished quality that suggests there's either more depth than there appears to be, or an underlying emptiness deriving from too much feral energy and not enough songwriting.
Given Klein's track record, I'm inclined to believe the former. Hilly Eye's emaciated sound is about as far as you can get from the all-fists-on-deck expansiveness of Titus Andronicus. It seems like a shortcut to something more singular to Klein's own experiences. What's left unresolved on Reasons to Live is what, exactly, Klein has to say about those experiences. It's a record borne of confusion-- though, to its credit, it's about confusion as well. "I am too young/ I am too old," she sings on "Almanac", which meanders aimlessly for a few minutes before magically producing the album's most rousing riff. Klein might still be figuring herself out, but the identity she seeks is definitely worth finding.
