It sucks an album like this is going to be ignored. Its blatant lo-fi recordings and hazy free-pop antics are all too easy sign posts to take for granted and turn another path on. Yet yours truly did the same thing upon a lazy mid-day listen. Although one track managed to catch my attention; "Perfume." Its light, cascading riff and warm atmosphere ensured Sweet Hassle would get another listen through in due time. That listen came, and nearly everything about this album shined as brightly as "Perfume" did that first time around, ultimately making for an honest and full-rounded experience as told by the murky reminiscences of Mr. Ryan Garbes.
Sweet Hassle has a unique ramshackle effect of vibrant colors and buzzy discord. Take a tune like "Thirst," which sounds like it's echoing through a tape player on shag-carpet, as Garbes passionately wails "I DON'T WANNA DIE!" as the production peaks and splinters through the muffled stereo. The album is full of nice little transitional grooves like "Dream" and "Rain Song" that keep that passionate pulse in-check, but slow it down to a barely-there haze that lightly chimes in the wind. These moments give Sweet Hassle a stark nostalgia that effortlessly burns within its songs.
In that sense a lot of what you hear can be reflected through the simplicity of the album's cover; the spontaneous act of photography. Essentially Sweet Hassle is a free-flowing, often times meditating interpretation of indie rock, through a vintage viewfinder. Hazy pop in a lava lamp, vintage rock caught in a memory. The album doesn't try to live up to a certain expectation or fit a certain notch, it simply looks through the lens and takes a picture; one that remains stylistically antique, but universally relatable.
[Ryan Garbes Website]
[Buy Sweet Hassle from Hello Sunshine Records]
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