Released in late 2021, nearly two decades after its spontaneous creation, HannaH (Or, the Whale) could be called the High Strung's sub-debut (or prequel). Famous for their work ethic and relentless imagination, the Detroit band have amassed one of indie rock's most endearing catalogs, chock-full of eccentric storytelling, punchy melodies, and riffy, off-the-cuff anthems. In 2002, while still based in New York, the High Strung had already made a four-track demo of their entire full-length debut, These Are Good Times, which they were scheduled to record in Detroit with producer Jim Diamond in a few weeks' time. While most bands would either continue to polish up their forthcoming songs or simply take some days off, the High Strung saw only potential in this errant gap of time. Turning a friend's Detroit dining room into a temporary recording space, the group set up their old TEAC 80-8 reel-to-reel and began conjuring new songs out of the air, the same way founders Josh Malerman and Mark Owen had been doing since their student days at Michigan State University.
Even without the benefit of hindsight, HannaH is quintessentially High Strung, as if the band arrived in the world perfectly formed, their token charms fully intact. Part of the set's specialness is in its circumstances -- ten new songs, written and recorded on the spot, not as a replacement for their intended first album but as a whimsical exercise to stay sharp during some unexpected downtime. Far from being These Are Good Times Jr., HannaH almost anticipates some of the creative directions the group would take on later records like Ode to the Inverse of the Dude and ¿Posible o' Imposible? From the Beatlesque chord shifts of opener "Whatever He Wanted" and the blown-out thump of "Cored Out Apple" to the incessantly hooky "Beautiful Summer," it's a unique document of a specific time and place that, thanks to the band's unbending ethos, sounds remarkably fresh after so many years in the vault.