Drip-Fed by The Hubbards is an album that first needs to be listened to privately. Review of a record with palpable emotions.
DRIP-FED – THE HUBBARDS
Filled with great melancholia and feelings of acceptance for past mistakes, Drip-Fed by The Hubbards goes straight to the heart. Between heavy and strong-headed riffs, emotional and troubled, some mature lines can be found. Questioning mental health, love and masculinity, The Hubbards dare to show their vulnerability. In just over half an hour, Drip-Fed is connecting with deep emotions. It’s a comforting melancholia because all its sadness and regrets we have seem understood here. Ours and those of our loved ones.
The affliction that lives in this record is shown from Going Home and navigates through the tracks with more or less intensity. This song reveals clear vocals, great writing, and almost sounds like the end of an opus. Yet a resolved introduction, it’s inextricably linked with the next track, Spot Me, I’m Clean, with more rage in its riffs. Effective. Love, and its opposite, is felt in Just Touch, and mainly in their ‘sad banger’ Chopper Baby. And to me the opposite of love isn’t hatred, but the void, the absence of sense, the feeling of being stuck. It’s beautifully transcribed in this track.
Stale’s arrangements add a dash of wonder to its disenchantment. Notes of hope can be perceived and Hiding & Reading them seems much more upbeat. It’s an escape here, through a great rhythm and precise guitars. Press Hard and Good When I’m Done also share a similar dynamic. The vocals are emotionally charged and heavy, with textures amplifying each feeling. The Hubbards close Drip-Fed with The Cracks Let It In. A round guitar, vocals hollowed by the chosen effects, some strings, and a soft and pop rhythm… The band seems to reject the injunction for masculinity to always be powerful and accepts its soft and sensible side too. It’s bright and honest.
The band will be on tour in the UK this April. More details here.
