Troubled Hubble "Making Beds in a Burning House" (Lookout!)
By Dave Schutz
Wednesday. Jun 29, 1:06 AM
Works as well as Paxil for that generally icky twentysomething feeling.

Troubled Hubble’s first album on Lookout! is long overdue. The relentlessly optimistic four-piece is rooted in the label’s tradition of bright and peppy pop and Making Beds in a Burning House tackles the stresses of the world (the news, the environment, the future, etc.) like a tweaky, secretly-panicked Death Cab For Cutie.

Travis Morrison-ish guitarist/vocalist Chris Otepka’s (given according up-front studio treatment by ex-The Dismemberment Plan guitarist Jason Caddell) seems to relish the sometimes-hell of post-grad life, traipsing through it like it’s a field of daisies. “Ear Nose & Throat” apes “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” without the history lesson, choosing instead to focus on the health care system. The axiom-filled “To Be Alive and Alone” comments smartly on codependence (“There's a hole in my soul that will never complete, just waiting for someone to marry me. Broken hearts are overrated, you died alone because you've waited. It's a great time to be alive and alone”).

Great little moments like these more or less forgive the album’s sameness, as well as the fact that getting Caddell to turn the knobs only draws them dangerously closer to one of their main influences. Like any other escape from modern life, Making Beds… is good in small doses, but too much of it might make you a little crazy.
www.troubledhubble.com
www.lookoutrecords.com

Click here to buy this album on iTunes!

Click here to download the iTunes jukebox application for Macintosh or Windows!

Dave Schutz

Got something constructive to say? By all means, rant away. Gonna blab about something unrelated and/or talk shit? Don't expect your comment to stick around.