Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:

Hinds

  • I Don't Run [Mom + Pop, 2018] A-
  • The Prettiest Curse [Mom + Pop, 2020] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

I Don't Run [Mom + Pop, 2018]
Think of Hinds as the anti-Beach House. Where Victoria Legrand's cool continental tease gets more detached and high-handed as her brand matoors, the Madrid foursome want to be liked. So they play the girl group, deploying chops that recall the early Breeders to power a goofy insouciance that beefs up the spirit of the Chiffons and the Cookies. All into their twenties by now, they make no pretence to innocence, because by now they're not just club kids--they're club kids who've seen the world no matter how unpolished their English. But they're also good-hearted going on kind, and although they'd rather hitch up with someone who doesn't get night sweats or bang another baby when they're not looking, they remain in the love hunt as a matter of principle. A-

The Prettiest Curse [Mom + Pop, 2020]
The charming maturation of these club kids who've mastered pop songcraft in plain sight is a sharply poignant reminder of what alt-rock may have lost forever in a health crisis where few simple pleasures seem more endangered than musical socialization in cramped indoor spaces. As they emote ever more catchily about their ever twistier love lives, the chance that they'll figure love out in the end seems considerably better than the chance that they'll keep that love alive in the world that spawned it. Listen to them ponder possibilities that have gotten so much chancier since they wrote these songs and wish them the best. A-