Bottom of the Hudson was once primarily a one-man band, releasing two patchwork demo-sounding albums before pulling together the effortlessly great and unfortunately overlooked Holiday Machine EP in 2005. That record was steeped in both the proud melodies and personal intimacy of 1990s indie, treading that balance easily thanks to the clean lo-fi aesthetic of bedroom auteur Eli Simon. In reviewing that EP for Pitchfork, I belabored a comparison between BOTH and Guided by Voices, which wasn't completely fair; it's not like they're the only two bands with equal affinity towards lo-fi recording and the British Invasion. They're both rare in how well they can balance the two, however, and Fantastic Hawk shows that and more. It's an album of simple, irresistible melodies and slow, subtle crescendos and insinuations that earn the band's occasional grand gestures.
While Fantastic Hawk makes use of a real studio, Simon's best songs transcend however they may be recorded. "Pretty Much It" exemplifies his ability for laconic vocal melodies that tug on the ears and pull us in like a familiar scent. "Perfect Distillation" (a phrase you'll likely only read in record reviews) builds slowly and cautiously to its perky, note-perfect chorus, while the ascending guitars on the sneaky coda of "Suffering Time" are cannily constructed and immaculately delivered. So there's tracks that would sound great in any setting, and tracks that meet new sounds halfway, like the woodwinds that pop up in the final moments of "Fantastic Hawk" or the Elvrum-like acoustic scrape of "Rusty Zippers", which puts all the burden on Simon's arresting vocal regardless of the oboes and zithers that garnish it.
There are also songs that, given the new studio treatment, should hit harder than they do: The raining marimbas and insistent guitar chug of "Bee Hive" cry out for top-down highway drives, but its strangely demure rhythm section keeps it stuck somewhere between intimacy and grandeur. "Over Engineered" is an overcooked lighter lifter with sheets of underwhelming shoegaze-stolen static. "Cemetary Gates" in particular punches at the walls of the band's limitations. From the staccato fake-out drums to the skittering drum pads, experimental and scattered under Simon's gift for traditional songwriting, its potential shines through while still begging for a more sympathetic producer.
Of course, as with the case with many of our favorite lo-fi bands (including the aforementioned GBV), we tend to love them during their formative years and turn on them when they get access to real studios and recording budgets. Fickle, maybe, and not something to accurately level at BOTH, but maybe we love not only these bands' tunes but their potential, embracing their would-be classics in their roughened state while believing they'd conquer the world if given a chance. Bottom of the Hudson deserve more than their small, fervent following, but while Fantastic Hawk has plenty of new sounds and strong moments, it seems to lack that world-conquering ambition.
