St. Paul's
Hippo Campus bring their yearning and artful indie pop to fruition on their transcendent third album, 2022's
LP3. Sometimes you put on an album and immediately know the artist has been through some deep stuff, that they've leveled up on their musical hero's journey. This is what it feels like listening to
LP3. Recorded on the heels of the group's equally sophisticated 2021 EP Good Dog, Bad Dream,
LP3 brings together the kinetic,
Vampire Weekend-style sound of 2017's
Landmark with the jazzy,
Steely Dan-esque soft rock and electronic flourishes of 2018's
Bambi. Tracks like "2 Young 2 Die," "Blew Its," and "Ashtray" blend sparkling guitar lines, dayglow synths, blown-out percussion grooves, and even harmonically nuanced horn parts via trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson. While you can still pick up on the band's myriad influences, they've made them their own. Once again at the core of
Hippo Campus' sound is singer
Jake Luppen, whose lithe, opera-trained vocals and ability to flow into a crystalline falsetto at any moment further distinguish the band's work on
LP3. He also brings a vulnerability to his often enigmatic lyrics that helps ground the album with a tender maturity. It's particularly redolent on "Boys," an absolutely mesmerizing, queer-leaning coming-of-age anthem that perfectly captures those in-between moments in a young person's life when they are figuring themselves out.
Luppen sings, "Kissing boys, missing work/Got hungover from your words/Same New York, it's the worst/All these nights are a blur." Of course, it's often in these seemingly random periods of being at loose ends that people discover who they really are. With
LP3,
Hippo Campus have made an album full of these transformative pop moments. ~ Matt Collar