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Bottom Of The Hudson are not who they claim to be. Okay, maybe they are, but they fooled me. Upon receiving their newest release, Fantastic Hawk, I had expected an energetic, sketchy, noise rock album, and after listening to the records opening song, you can imagine my surprise.

With all of the confusion surrounding this record (mostly my confusion, I thought the band was "Fantastic Hawk" and the record was titled "Bottom Of The Hudson" until about 5 minutes before I began writing this) it was kind of hard to get into. The records opening song, Fantastic Hawk is a nice  enough acoustic-ish song but, like most of the record, goes nowhere. I would heavily recommend this record to an insomniac, I’m sure it would be very peaceful to fall asleep to, although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing in terms of the band.

Fantastic Hawk intertwines acoustic songs along with some very slow indie-ish tracks that really just bleed into each other. I would imagine a conversation regarding this album would sound a lot like..

"Hey dude, you heard the new Fantastic Hawk cd?"

"Yeah man! I love it, gotta love that good indie sound."

"Oh really? What’s your favorite song on it?"

"....Ah man, I like ‘em all...yeah, good record...."

Because I’m pretty sure if I handed this album to 5 of my friends,, 4 of them would probably lie and say they liked it, but would not be able to name a single song off of it. This is a good album to buy if you want some sweet underground indie cred without actually listening to any music whatsoever.

If I were you, I would give this record a shot if you’re into some soft rock a la old Death Cab. If you find it in the least bit interesting, chances are you’ll like it a good bit. My iTunes classified it in the "Unclassifiable" genre, and I felt genuinely outsmarted by my computer, because I don’t think I could have put it any better.

For Fans Of: old Death Cab, old Snow Patrol (some new Snow Patrol)

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