February 21, 2020 by A.S. Van Dorston

Named after one of the worst songs on The Stone Roses’ 1989 debut, I didn’t expect much from this band at first. I’m a fan of all the Creation records influencers of that era – Teenage Fanclub, The House Of Love, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, The Telescopes, The Weather Prophets, The Jazz Butcher and to a lesser extent, Primal Scream, but The Stone Roses felt too engineered — a pretty candy coating, but hollow inside. Fortunately, the Montreal band’s sixth album, Hollow is anything but. Rishi Dhir has always brought more to the table than baggy-era neo-psych. With his sitar playing, soulful songwriting and influences that also reach back to the 60s psych pop era, all their albums have much to offer, even the relatively disappointing Ship Of Fools (2016), which followed Tame Impala’s lead in dabbling in soft rock and 80s synthpop.

The Hollow Earth is a cult favorite piece of whackadoo 60’s UFO literature, and also a common sci-fi concept of entire societies/species living inside the/a planet. Responding to perceived social and climate anxiety, Dhir wrote a “song-suite telling of a world of unhappy souls who have lost connection with each other.” The result is a dystopian sci-fi concept album inspired by The Who’s Tommy, Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow and Abbey Road side 2. The first track “Hollow World” features guest vocals from his daughter Meera, underlying his poignant motivation for the concept, reminding me of the recent heartfelt storyline along similar lines on Fred Deakin’s The Lasters. The next four songs, “Darker Time, Darker Space” through “Keep the Light Alive,” briskly move the narrative along in just 5:43 total. More snippets than complete songs, this must be the Abbey Road influence, most overtly with the guitar solo 1:10 into the final track in that run. “We Cry For Harmonia” returns to full length tunes, a creamy, dreamy synth-assisted tune, the wobbly electronics overlayed with tablas, leading into “Harmonia” which sees the welcome return of Dhir’s sitar.

While the synthpop direction has not been reversed, at least “The Clampdown” shows fang more than anything since Dhir’s work with the 2018 supergroup project Mien. “House On Fire” finally brings on the chiming guitars, with a transcendent lick uplifting the vocal verses, making it by far the most captivating song on the album. As it happens with such concept albums, not every track totally stands on their own, and I could have stood less atmosphere and more hooks along the lines of “House On Fire.” Nevertheless, the scaled arpeggios throughout give the album musicial cohesian, and a hopeful, uplifting sensation. Those who complain about the dissonance between the dark subject matter and pretty music probably also don’t understand Tom Waits when he says, “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” Besides, anyone with children or who cares about animals and the planet, or anything other than themselves know that hope is important.

Hollow is certainly their best album since their self-titled 2013 album, and kicks the gloopy, bloopy synthpop shit out of Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush which was released the same day and will undeservedly reach a thousand times more listeners than Hollow. How many psych pop dystopian sci-fi concept albums do we get before the apocalypse? If they’re as good as this, hopefully lots.

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