Despite writing over 100 songs over the course of five years for its fourth studio album, Midwest indie rock band Hippo Campus chose to release only 13. Dissatisfied with the production process, its members retreated to prominent Texas recording studio Sonic Ranch, where they recorded select tracks to master an album they could all be proud of. The band — whose musical journey started at a Minnesota performing arts high school over a decade ago — found the result of its two-week studio endeavor in “Flood.” An album with as many layers as its four members’ shared history, it’s a no-nonsense, no-skip record that’s both clever and nostalgic.
The record, which was released on Sept. 20, has an air of sincerity that goes untempered and unrivaled. In a recent interview with GQ, Bassist Zach Sutton labeled “Flood” as a “guy-entering-his-thirties album,” and the songs express feelings of uncertainty that could only come straight from the souls of musicians jumping into a new decade of their lives. The band’s discography has often evoked the themes of time and its passage, from reflections on boyhood in the 2017 song, “baseball,” to childhood loss through “Bad Dream Baby” in 2021. Now writing from a more mature outlook, “Flood” explores change with an evolved sort of trepidation.
The inquisitive track “Paranoid” playfully inundates listeners with a series of existential questions, as well as its titular notion with lyrics like “Everything and everyone’s out to get me / Nobody is helping and nobody should let me be.” Despite the frenetic energy and soaring vocals of this refrain, the band seems to revel in the discomfort, with a tongue-in-cheek reaction to hints of normalcy. “Wait, I thought I saw my own face in the mirror,” frontman Jake Luppen teases, “But it was your ugly mug / I can go back to being… / Paranoid.” The song and the record as a whole pose a lot of questions, and the boys’ answers — or at least, their best shot at those answers — are conveyed through ambiguous lyrics.
The album pieces in elements of the group’s past work and fits comfortably onto the shelf of its discography. It departs from the heavily modulated, experimental soundscape the band established in its 2022 album, “LP3,” by being a largely acoustic record; however, there’s still hints of autotune modulation that call back to their earlier eras. “Corduroy” hearkens back to the subtly Western atmosphere of the 2023 EP “Wasteland,” with a steady, meandering chorus and a harmonica interlude from guitarist Nathan Stocker.
However, the new record takes on a more reserved, gentle air. Each song is mellow, but never boring. Charming rhythmic guitar tabs and vocal harmonies stratified between members blend seamlessly across the tracklist while a textured drumbeat keeps tempo, leading to a sound that will age gracefully.
“Here’s to another birthday,” Luppen sings on “Slipping Away,” after lamenting that he “Could have sworn things wouldn’t change.” Interjected on a song with a rhythm similar to those found on the band’s debut album, the lyricism is a farewell to times passed and also an ode to the burgeoning possibilities of future years. On the album’s closer, “I Got Time,” Luppen sings, “I would’ve never believed you / If you told me how lucky I’d get in this life / Got twice what I needed, when I say it, I mean it.” The combination of the song’s reflective nature and the rich vocal harmonies between Luppen and drummer Whistler Allen make it a moving closing track.
“Flood” eases Hippo Campus into a new era of creation while paying homage to their old stylizations and techniques. The band’s trajectory, while forward-thinking, will always be anchored in its history and the members’ resulting chemistry — fitting, given that “Flood” was only properly realized in the same Texas studio as the band’s debut album, “Landmark,” was created in 2017. Because of these foundations, the band’s evolving sound has the same comfort as a quality sweater: well-loved, worn-in and nowhere near worse for wear.
Contact Eleanor Jacobs at [email protected].
