Review: Hippo Campus – “Bambi”

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Michael Quinn, Music Staffer

I prefer the sound of Bambi over Landmark if we’re comparing. They maintain their
former sounds on a few cuts on the album like “Golden” or “Honestly,” but it has a few songs that
are on another level compared to their former works, like their first track “Mistakes,” which has a
very echoey, spacey vibe that really encapsulated me over most of their discography personally.

Coming from a band where I admittedly had low expectations of when I saw this release,
passing them off as another generic indie rock band, this was a very pleasant surprise. That
being said, I do think they overuse this new, reverb-y guitar sound that they’ve adopted in this
album, making some tracks on it really unmemorable, like “Why Even Try” or “Think It Over” or
even their title track “Bambi,” which in terms of production sound like high quality bedroom pop,
but in terms of re-listenability factor, it falls a little short for me personally.

“Think It Over” sounds like a song that could blend in on a ‘vibe’ playlist, but in terms of listening to it attentively, you get a grasp of what the song has to offer within the first minute and a half and then continues on for another minute and a half that feels almost unnecessary. A high point on this album would be the song Bubbles, that starts with a pleasant, poppy guitar and jumpy vocals that is abruptly
shattered by an intensely amped boosted and exciting chorus, before shifting back to an airy
and ambient synth and poppy guitars once again.

The final song “Passengers” finishes with another pretty and glitzy synth and piano part that reminded me ever so slightly of Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th, which I enjoyed personally. Overall, I enjoy the sound and production on the album quite a bit, but feel, even though they’ve professed this to be a deeper and more emotional album, they have the potential to do something more.