left" width="71" height="71">HaHa Sound
Warp, 2003
rating: 4/5
reviewer: k___iller
Three years feels like ten when you miss a band. Broadcast has been hiding out for a while, letting fans like myself get restless awaiting new material. This is a flight right into the danger zone. Making fans wait gives the impression that the new music is just that much more thought out and in turn, expectations grow (especially when they are impatient and bitter like myself). I was confident that in the case of Broadcast, this was a safe assumption.
The band has been subjected to some tough times since the release of The Noise Made By People in 2000. The loss of a drummer, the search for a new studio, and the passing of Warp Records co-founder and good friend Rob Mitchell, has all taken its toll. Despite these pitfalls and tragedies, the band still manages to name their album HaHa Sound, showing that they really are the troopers you thought they were.
HaHa Sound is no joke (bad joke tally=1). When you compare this album to their previous work, it is like they moved their studio to a grassy knoll in the park (somewhere sunny, not Birmingham) and ate picnics everyday while producing (exaggeration factor=3). The darker sound of past has been noticeably lightened up””evidenced by "Pendulum," released last month as an EP of same name, a pre-full length nibblet. But do not expect all the tracks to sound like Pendulum; they don’t. Broadcast justifies their home on Warp Records by keeping the album just experimental enough to be interesting. Each track is creative enough to sound like it could be on a different album, some even from a different group. From harmonic to poppy to jazzy to slow and instrumental, this record will not bore you. So go buy it!
1. Colour Me In
2. Pendulum
3. Before We Begin
4. Valerie
5. Man Is Not a Bird
6. Minim
7. Lunch Hour Pops
8. Black Umbrellas
9. Ominous Cloud
10. Distortion
11. Oh How I Miss You
12. The Little Bell
13. Winter Now
14. Hawk