Item: Big World
Rating: 8.5
Author: pastemagazine

Wavelength

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Big World by Hovvdy reviewed by pastemagazine — 8.5/10 | Wavelength | Wavelength

Created after a pivotal move from Austin to Nashville, the duo’s finesse for laid-back vocal melodies that burrow into your brain is clearer and more colorful than ever.

The yearning and melancholy within “Blast” has become a calling card for the duo—one they’ve spent the past twelve years refining. It’s a style they once dubbed “pillowcore,” a descriptor that scans as tongue-in-cheek but winds up astute, zeroing in on the symbiotic sweet-but-sad-ness they channel so gracefully. (In the years since the band’s emergence, that micro-genre has spawned an entire Bandcamp tag attached to multiple artists.) With their self-titled 2024 LP, Martin and fellow singer-songwriter Will Taylor found their most compelling and varied flavor of that sound, melding fractured bedroom-folk tunes and polished indie-pop bangers into a 53-minute tapestry. Big World is tighter and even more colorful—a further massaging of what made Hovvdy so special.

Martin and Taylor created Big World after a pivotal move from Austin to Nashville, where they pursued “pop songwriting” on the side. (“[It’s] something we’ve been interested in…for years and have dabbled in,” Martin told Last Donut of the Night in 2024. “[B]ut now it’s more of a focus alongside Hovvdy.”) They’ve always had a finesse for laid-back vocal melodies that burrow into your brain, but these new songs bring that skill into clearer view.

Over the static drum programming, gurgling synthesizer, and rainy-day fiddle of “Junk,” Taylor’s close-miked sigh conjures early-days John Mayer; the wistful “Try Try Try” blooms from its choppy guitar stride into a chorus of softly contrasting images (“You sleep; I drive / You laugh; I cry / You count; I hide”), and there’s something magnetic about that simplicity. The ramshackle “Way Down” is almost disarmingly bare—mostly built on a handful of acoustic chords, a drowsy lap-steel, and the barely-there glow of a Wurlitzer—but Hovvdy stretch it all out into a gorgeous slow-churn. “What you think about that? / Graduated from a punk to a hack / Can’t speak on that,” Taylor sings through light fuzz, stretching out those lines into an unrelenting ear worm.

Hovvdy’s big world is still plenty expansive, accentuated by the duo’s production alongside longtime collaborator Bennett Littlejohn. “What I Had” is framed around a fragile harmonica honk and the racing-heartbeat thump of a faint kick, while “Starry” drifts into an open sky of twinkling piano and brushed drums. But the album revolves around those undeniable smile-cry pop moments, including the euphoric “JJ.” Over a muted bass groove, phased guitar licks, and some skippy drum programming, Martin sings about family and honesty and longing: “Two-sided, I’m on your side / Honest, I almost cry.” It feels like the record in a nutshell: sweet, gentle, dreamlike, versatile, heartbreaking, and overwhelmingly open-armed. [Arts & Crafts]

Ryan Reed is a writer and editor from Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to Paste, his work has appeared over the years in Rolling Stone, Revolver, The New York Times, Pitchfork, and many other publications.

The emotional anchor of Hovvdy’s sixth album, Big World, is a glimmering crystal of a song that feels as natural and elemental as breathing or crying. On “Blast,” Charlie Martin coos hazy lines about regret and self-improvement against an unobtrusive collage: a ringing, compressed acoustic arpeggio; a crunchy nineties electro-pop beat; flickering psychedelic guitar and dobro overdubs; a processed vocal with the twang of a country ballad. “Touch down, small town,” Martin sings. “We could do better next time / We could do better every time.” The yearning and melancholy within “Blast” has become a calling card for the duo—one they’ve spent the past twelve years refining. It’s a style they once dubbed “pillowcore,” a descriptor that scans as tongue-in-cheek but winds up astute, zeroing in on the symbiotic sweet-but-sad-ness they channel so gracefully. (In the years since the band’s emergence, that micro-genre has spawned an entire Bandcamp tag attached to multiple artists.) With their self-titled 2024 LP, Martin and fellow singer-songwriter Will Taylor found their most compelling and varied flavor of that sound, melding fractured bedroom-folk tunes and polished indie-pop bangers into a 53-minute tapestry. Big World is tighter and even more colorful—a further massaging of what made Hovvdy so special. Martin and Taylor created Big World after a pivotal move from Austin to Nashville, where they pursued “pop songwriting” on the side. (“[It’s] something we’ve been interested in…for years and have dabbled in,” Martin told Last Donut of the Night in 2024. “[B]ut now it’s more of a focus alongside Hovvdy.”) They’ve always had a finesse for laid-back vocal melodies that burrow into your brain, but these new songs bring that skill into clearer view. Over the static drum programming, gurgling synthesizer, and rainy-day fiddle of “Junk,” Taylor’s close-miked sigh conjures early-days John Mayer; the wistful “Try Try Try” blooms from its choppy guitar stride into a chorus of softly contrasting images (“You sleep; I drive / You laugh; I cry / You count; I hide”), and there’s something magnetic about that simplicity. The ramshackle “Way Down” is almost disarmingly bare—mostly built on a handful of acoustic chords, a drowsy lap-steel, and the barely-there glow of a Wurlitzer—but Hovvdy stretch it all out into a gorgeous slow-churn. “What you think about that? / Graduated from a punk to a hack / Can’t speak on that,” Taylor sings through light fuzz, stretching out those lines into an unrelenting ear worm. Hovvdy’s big world is still plenty expansive, accentuated by the duo’s production alongside longtime collaborator Bennett Littlejohn. “What I Had” is framed around a fragile harmonica honk and the racing-heartbeat thump of a faint kick, while “Starry” drifts into an open sky of twinkling piano and brushed drums. But the album revolves around those undeniable smile-cry pop moments, including the euphoric “JJ.” Over a muted bass groove, phased guitar licks, and some skippy drum programming, Martin sings about family and honesty and longing: “Two-sided, I’m on your side / Honest, I almost cry.” It feels like the record in a nutshell: sweet, gentle, dreamlike, versatile, heartbreaking, and overwhelmingly open-armed. [Arts & Crafts] Ryan Reed is a writer and editor from Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to Paste, his work has appeared over the years in Rolling Stone, Revolver, The New York Times, Pitchfork, and many other publications.