Mix the Strokes with a bit of Bombay Bicycle Club, add a hint of 3oh!3 and just a dash of Bob Dylan, and the result would be chaos–Mind Chaos to be exact.
Random? Completely. Crazy? Most definitely. Genius? Quite possibly. For a debut album, Hockey’s Mind Chaos” sets the bar high. To put a concrete genre on it would be a disservice given that their ability to weave in and out of electronic funk and punk rock styles is nearly seamless. Even the occasional retro ballad seems to fit into the perfectly imperfect hodgepodge of songs which Hockey has compiled for their first album.
The CD starts off with the undeniably catchy “Too Fake which fuses angsty punk rock lyrics with dance-move-inducing backbeats which are said to cause uncontrollable butt shaking” by junior Stephen McNeil.
Alas the hype lasts for only a short while before it nose-dives into the maddeningly monotonous throbbing of the CD’s shoddiest track “3am Spanish.” The song goes on for a terribly long four minutes before plummeting into a white-noise abyss leaving the listener feeling gypped out of a proper transition.
But fear not funk music aficionados; the album only goes uphill from there. The apex of Hockey’s musical ability shines in “Song Away which is sure to become a top hit among the band’s growing number of faithful followers. The tracks continue in a similar retro-induced fashion, making this the perfect soundtrack for a lively party. To cap it all off, Hockey closes with Everybody’s the Same Age.” This nostalgic folk ballad though dissimilar to the previous 10 tracks perfectly ends the album on a mellow note.
All in all Hockey’s first album is a generous melting pot of musical ability that does not disappoint.