Hybrid aren't a band of the sort you'd see Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne sending to boot camp, but they probably should be.
I Choose Noise marks the eagerly-awaited return of the Welsh group's album releases, and is clearly intended to pick up where
Morning Sci-Fi left off. As with its predecessor, Hybrid have thrown orchestral sequences (performed by the Seattle Session Orchestra), their unmistakable breakbeat loops and some pop melodies and vocals that wouldn't sound out of place on the Radio 1 Chart Show into a blender together and set it to well and truly mix it up.
Playing in the background at a respectable volume,
I Choose Noise is something you can half-listen to and ignore. Turn it up, or listen to it on your MP3 player, and it begins to sound like a true Hybrid release. Whilst it's not an album that you'll listen to once and immediately fall in love with, after a couple of listens you start to pick up on the subtle touches that make it what it is.
Hybrid have been quoted as saying around the release of
Morning Sci-Fi “We've been listening to absolutely anything other than dance music. I suppose that is because dance music is so ingrained into what we do naturally. We've been listening to stuff like The Doves, Radiohead, Soulwax, New Order and lots of jangly indie guitar bands and classical music, particularly the work of Arvo Part and Alexander Gretchaninov”, and this latest release shows that they've taken that concept and run with it.
After a short introductory piece (
Secret Circles), the album kicks off with
Dogstar, a song which shows off precisely what Hybrid are good at: taking a mainstream concept and making it
better. Lyrically, the song isn't anything special—but that somehow doesn't matter much. The melding of the orchestra's string section with some acoustic guitar strumming, vocals which sound like they've been rammed through the pop music post-production machine at full pelt and breaks that only BT does better makes for something which if asked to describe to a perfect stranger you'd invariably start with “Well, it's hard to describe…”. Fans of
Morning Sci-Fi won't find it particularly unfamiliar—the similarities between it and many of the songs on that album are obvious—but it does seem to take it that extra step further which makes all the difference.
The album continues through the title track—
I Choose Noise—a slightly more electronic offering with overtones of later Jean-Michele Jarre, the Chemical Brothers and late 1990s dance music, still backed by the now-familiar string and timpani sequences.
Next up is
Falling Down, featuring the melancholy vocals of Judie Tzuke (an accomplished singer-songwriter herself, and daughter of
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin's Jean Silverside), which has an ever-so-slightly eastern feel to it now and then, and flirts outrageously with the notion of being a real pop record. In places, even Hybrid's breakbeat stock is replaced with a more traditional drumline.
Last Man Standing continues with the eastern theme, resulting in a largely non-vocal track which wouldn't have sounded terribly out of place on
Wide Angle. It's powerful, and even at eight minutes long there's enough complexity there to make it worth listening to, but it doesn't quite have the depth and direction that makes it a truly great song. Similarly,
Hooligan Spirit is another—somewhat heavier—instrumental piece with a more industrial vibe to it. It works well in the context of the album, but doesn't really stand in its own right—though I have no doubt it'll appear on a movie soundtrack before long. In contrast,
Choke is a heavy vocal number which would fit in nicely at any rock club, despite the lack of traditional instruments—but since when has that stopped anybody?
Following on from the journey through that related quad, we're greeted with
Keep It In the Family, an instrumental piece which doesn't just sound like it'll end up on a movie soundtrack, it sounds like it was written for one. It's actually a stunning musical piece which seems to tell a story. The dark melodies, distorted guitar samples, piano sequences against a background of a persistent methodical drum-loop and slow, sad, powerful strings make for a track which speaks of betrayal and pain. The classical influences are at their most prevalent here, and Hybrid seem to have taken everything they know about classical music storytelling and produced something—and something unquestionably good, at that—clearly in the same vein which is also undoubtedly modern.
With a name like
Until Tommorrow, you'd expect a pop track, and you'd be right. Strip away everything that makes it a Hybrid track, and it's something you might hear from Journey South. Put it all back together, and you're left with a song which entirely defeats the usual pop monotony, despite the repetitive lyrics and guitar strumming.
Dream Stalker is a relatively forgettable—if fun—track which seems to be there to bridge the gap between the earlier tracks and the more traditional sounds of
Just For Today which the album finishes on.
Just for Today is a track which has a lot in common with much of
Morning Sci-Fi. Progressive/uplifting trance-style synths and vocal sequences, complex breaks, all overlaid over a string backing make for a track that you can't just listen to once. It's almost like somebody told Hybrid that they needed to finish the album on a high note, and as high notes go
Just for Today is pretty up there.
If Hybrid's albums were films,
Wide Angle would be the cult anthology of related short stories,
Morning Sci-Fi would be the sunday afternoon stock romanticism with a little excitement thrown in, and
I Choose Noise would be the action/thriller that manages to squeeze a believable love story into the plot. This album has a plot; it has an exciting start and it finishes on a high-note, and in the middle you're taken on a journey through a world of different styles and influences. Don't let the albums's pop credentials put you off it, though. This is without any shadow of a doubt a Hybrid album, and they've done what they always have: creaming the best from everything that influences them and combining them in a way that nobody else really does.
So, can Hybrid save pop music? Probably not—after all, if everybody sounded like this it would probably get boring—but if this is the result of them trying, I hope they carry on for a long time to come.
I Choose Noise is available now from record shops, as well as from the iTunes Music Store. My favourite track from the album (and arguably the one which is the most like previous Hybrid offerings)—
Just for Today—is available for download (free registration required) from the band's official website
hybridsoundsystem.com.
