Album Review: Orlando Weeks – 'Hop Up'

The accompanying video to ‘Deep Down Way Out’, the opening track from Orlando Week’s second solo album, features him with actor and comedian Lolly Adefope grooving under giant acoustic mirrors at the former RAF site at Denge.

It is a track that sets the tone for a laid-back record that is an affirmation to the beauty of parenting and adoration of the baby. While Weeks’ previous offering The Quickening detailed imminent parenthood, Hop Up is what happens after. Lead single ‘Look Who’s Talking Now’ is reminiscent of Prefab Sprout without the existential complexity of Paddy McAloon, indeed seldom has an artist sounded less carefree than Weeks does throughout Hop Up.

Jarring synth and the hectic arrangement of ‘Yup Yup Yup Yup’ is combatted and defeated by a repeated refrain of “love you, love you” and echoes of childhood toys and nursery rhymes as baby slumbers and father awaits sunrise. Honey reverbed vocals ooze on ‘High Kicking’, the cute times continue on ‘Make You Happy’, a type of futurist Gregorian chant, while ‘Big Skies, Silly Faces’ features West Country singer- songwriter Katy J Pearson.

In his capacity as lead singer of The Maccabees, Weeks often shouldered undue criticism for being too derivative, to a large degree that is exorcised here. Sure, the influences of Visage, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears and A-Ha may be extant but blended as they are with AA Milne and The Blue Nile, the result is something original and inceptive.

7/10
Listen: 'Deep Down Way Out'