Latching onto our earlobes whether we liked it or not, The Hoosiers’ top ten debut single ‘Worried About Ray’ was simply unavoidable: elastic vocals, foot-tapping melodies, a quirky fashion sense and a delivery that in no way tried to force any ‘important’ social messages down our throat.
Fronted by Irwin Sparks, a vivacious frontman if ever there was one, The Hoosiers hail from Britain and Sweden and create what they call “odd pop.” Their long-awaited debut album possesses a surprisingly large amount of variety, but the overall problem here lies with the fact that Sparks and his men simply don’t dish out enough quality. Despite an interesting array of brass arrangements and bizarre lyrical content, it doesn’t get much better than ‘Worried About Ray.’
You’ll happily sing along to the current single, the infectious ‘Goodbye Mr. A,’ but it all begins to grate after a short period of time. ‘Worst Case Scenario’ displays some neat guitar tricks and head-bopping sequences, but a clogged production ruins a near magical instrumentation on ‘Sadness Runs Through Him.’
Swimming through bass lines and snare hits remarkably similar to The Cure’s ‘Lovecats’, ‘Cops And Robbers’ belts us in the face, Sparks’ vocals stretching high and wide over the crazy backdrop. But it’s all a little irritating and the layer of cheesiness hanging over every note makes it quite difficult for us to take this indie-pop trio seriously.