Earlimart Album Recommendations: "Hymn and Her"

Album Recommendations: Hymn and Her

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Earlimart

[#] Hymn and Her (2011)

Christmas cheer.

Reviewed January 6, 2024

Every successive record in the Earlimart canon takes them the river's ride further and further from the homegrown, textured indie pop that first came out on The Avenues EP in 2002, and 2008's Hymn and Her is no exception. With all the spring reverb across the vocals and guitars, there's a distinct chamber pop angle to this record, certainly wintry, almost Christmassy, especially when Earlimart are led around by their pianos, like on "Before It Gets Better" or the choruses of "God Loves You the Best". This gives Hymn and Her a pretty unique feel across their catalog: pared down to their two main members (hence the title), Earlimart gives us a snowed-in set of twelve tunes that are as pleasant, sugary, and sweetly sung as they are depressingly claustrophobic.

"And Heaven's not the same/In the rain/It's just a sad old day like today/Like today/But I'm already in your heart," Earlimart's leading man Aaron Espinoza whisper-sings on "For the Birds". It's rare that Hymn and Her is sonically as dysfunctional as its lyrics; it's always pleasant and often downright bouncy. There's definitely something troubled in the record's heart though; "Cigarettes and Kerosene" seems as fond of teenage delinquency as its name suggests, "Face Down in the Right Town" evokes a lifetime's worth of disappointment and lost loves, and the title track pleads for rest and safety in nowhere else but where no one can touch you, your dreams. Hymn and Her is the perfect record for those who like their instrumentation gentle and their lyrics near burnout.