Reviews

Artist:Librarians With Hickeys
Album: How To Make Friends By Telephone
Label: Big Stir
Tracks: 11
Website: https://lwh1962.wixsite.com/librarianswithickeys/

For the Brits reading this, hickeys are the American term for love bites, the red mark caused by kissing or sucking the skin in moments of passion, though it's rather less of a thing now than it was back in the 60s. Having cleared that up, sounding much younger, the Librarians in question are twin guitarists Mike Crooker and Ray Carmen from Akron, Ohio, this being their third album and the chiming, ringing and jangling Strat and Rickenbacker guitars and blurry nasal vocals an absolute folk rock cum power pop magnet for anyone whose collection includes The Byrds, REM or, if they really cool, The Feelies

Today's cellphone users likely won't recognise the sound of a telephone being dialled that opens the jangly, McGuinn meets Jeff Lynne 'Hello Operator', an effervescent number based on how, when he was four years old, Carmen would call the local small town operator every day just because he liked talking to her, but also sets the theme of communication in a chaotic world that runs throughout, echoing Julian Cope in the line "Don't you wish the whole world would shut its mouth".

If the equally jangly 'Listening' brings The Monkees to mind, that's probably because it has Carmen remembering his teenage years listening to their music and his mother's Beatles records while 'You Don't Know Me', about someone trying to connive the object of his affection that he's not a shallow jerk ("if you think that you're nothing to me, then you don't know me at all… I've never looked at you as just a means to an end/I've always seen you as more than a friend"), similarly recalls summery 60s pop with its Merseybeat echoes and comes replete with oooing backing vocals and even a zither.

Written for a friend who didn't get the support he expected from family and friends when he came out, for some reason Eddie & The Hotrods came to mind with the Strat and Rickenbacker interplay of 'No More Goodbyes' as well as hints of The Who mingled among the Byrdsian fuzz and handclaps. On the other hand, 'Out Of Your Hair' draws on the sounds of Toad The Wet Sprocket and REM for a song about bowing out of an unrequited relationship ("You say you love me but you love him more/Well that's OK I know the score …It's plain to see that I'm a bother to you… I know you only tried to build me up, but I fell for it all and made a fool of myself"). It has an apt companion piece with the more mid-tempo guitar-drenched 'Brand New Boyfriend' ("Now she's happy and she don't want/Nothin' to do with me/Now she's happy and she don't need me hangin' around/No more") while, sandwiched in-between there's the more of a country rock Beach Boys flavour (and banjo) of 'What Happened To My Heart' that sounds much the same break-up note ("You used to be my girl I used to be your man…I made you a promise that I couldn't keep/I dressed you down and I made you weep/I used to be numb but now I'm feeling the pain/Of losing a love I won't get back again"), picking the album title imagery back up again as they sing "I lost my place and now the phone's off the hook".

There's a switch of style with 'Mirror', a more urgent riff-driven desert twang about finding yourself at a metaphorical crossroad ("I'm the mirror at the end of the road") that might owe a little to Blue Oyster Cult , while, keeping the pace driving along. 'Spying By The Numbers' leans into the duo's love of early Elvis Costello (and Steve Nieve's organ) for a whimsical tale of a spy who fell for his femme fatale nemesis complete with the somewhat double entendre lines "You might be in her music box, but she's inside your head" and "You're checking out her assets while she slyly finds a way/To sell you up the river, and drop your knees to pray".

Again keeping it in high gear, the punchy 'Have You Heard' with its 80s New Wave power is about trying to finding a deeper connection in the quieter moments , " 'Tween the dream and the seen/The mystery and what it means", before slowing it down for the penultimate, blurry psychrock sway of 'Ship To Shore' about trying to communicate with a loved one overseas, who may - or may not - be waiting when they get home ("I can barely hear you now, are you there at all/I'm shouting down the wire and you're shouting back to me/The waves are higher and higher and I'm drifting out to sea").

It ends with a brief salvo of drums opening 'Everything Will Be Alright', another riffs tumbling throwback to late 60s pop, ELO orchestral pulses and The Who, basically saying take some time to wind down, turn off the phone, close the social media, forget the world outside and just mellow down ("Think about the things that you're gonna do/When you awake in the daylight/Everything will be all right"), fading away with a swirl of mellotron and guitars. Put them on speed dial.

Mike Davies

Previous	Next
Mairearad Green and Rachel Newton: Anna Bhan	Jessica Dives: Halfway Lost EP

Recent Reviews

Hello Operator

Fatea Showcase Sessions

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.

Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy

www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.

Visit The FATEA Archive!