Despite Bad Bad Hats’ founding members Kerry Alexander and Chris Hoge getting married between recording sessions, Lightning Round feels more like an album about separation than honeymoons.
On Bad Bad Hats’ first album, 2015’s Psychic Reader, Alexander sings about standing at the edge of romantic relationships, sometimes looking inwards, sometimes looking out at the devastation. Despite its members, personal lives, the trio’s sophomore effort, Lightning Round, doesn’t follow too far behind. But it’s a more cohesive and musically grounded album than the last — like the band has found that maturity comes from overcoming mistakes and challenges, not just the act of ‘growing up.’
Alexander, Hoge, Connor Davison and Noah Boswell (who has now left the band to pursue his master’s), are still making music about what place our partners have in our lives. The songwriting on Lightning Round feels more assertive and somehow vulnerable, even if the lyrics haven’t changed much thematically. Maybe that’s because the band recorded the album live in the studio with producer Brett Bullion, giving the music a more organic and earthy quality. The album’s two singles, “Write It On Your Heart” and “Talk With Your Hands,” are the most polished and don’t necessarily represent the rest of the album, though. The moments that really make room for musical nuance — a crack in Alexander’s voice, a ‘wrong’ guitar chord, drums that are just a beat behind — are actually the best music Bad Bad Hats has made. Alexander’s lyrics have always been vulnerable, and Lightning Round’s musical imperfection elevates the strength of that.
“Makes Me Nervous” starts the album on a timid note. Rather than launch the listener into the album’s singles or begin with any grand lyrical ideas, Alexander sings about walking on eggshells, not knowing where she is with a partner. There’s a lurking guitar riff present throughout the song, and Alexander’s voice is hushed. But “Write It On Your Heart” and “Get What I Want” take no prisoners (as much as any indie-pop band can suggest that). There’s something bolder about Alexander’s voice on the first half of Lightning Round, where her voice is at its most powerful. It whips and cracks, sometimes with some snark. “Can I, can I, can I / Get what I want / This time?” she sings, her voice a step higher with each repetition.
On “Nothing Gets Me High,” Alexander sings, “I look for you at the basement show / Looking for your face in the faceless glow / Push my way through the indigo / Time is slow and I’m back in love again.” The lyrics are grounded with a consistent drum beat, layered with airy guitar and synth at the end of the verse. The drums follow just behind Alexander as she sings. It’s hard to tell whether that movement is intentional songwriting or a product of the live recording process. Either way, it fits the mood Alexander created with her lyrics. The end of the song peters out with Alexander and company looping, tuning their guitars and fidgeting with their instruments. Anywhere else this might feel out of place, but it perfectly segues into “Talk With Your Hands.”
The second half of Lightning Round returns to the playfulness evident in the band’s earlier albums and EP. Both musically and lyrically, side B is reminiscent of the catchy songs on the It Hurts EP. But there’s still a looseness in how the cymbals rise above the guitar in the mix. Alexander paints a vivid picture of unreciprocated feelings on “Girl.”
“I don’t think anything will happen / You smell like smoke but look like satin / We lie in bed and can’t stop laughing / I don’t know what to do with that,” she sings innocently before launching into the chorus. “What do you think about / when you see me. A girl girl girl / or am I just another catch?” Her voice releases on the word catch, as if she’s letting go. “Girl” is both doe-eyed and innocent, but also accepts that fact — like much of their discography. The beginning of the song sounds like a music box with a spinning ballerina figurine, but it slowly grows in self-acceptance, emphasizing the cyclical instrumentals.
Bad Bad Hats has found a good spot with Lightning Round. The band’s core lyrical and musical sensibilities are there, and yet they are still growing. Lightning Round may be rough around the edges, but it’s all the more perfect because of that.
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