Hum Album Recommendations

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.

Hum

[#] Electra2000 (1993)

Pummel pommel pumble. Yehhhhhh.

Reviewed November 14, 2018

"Serenity stomped flat" is perhaps the best way I can describe the first minutes of Hum's Electra2000. The peaceful chime of the guitars and slowly wandering bassline give way to industrial drums and riffing that that borders on metal. "He don't need a word from this fucking tease," singer Matt Talbott lays out in no uncertain terms before positing what the titular Iron Clad Lou really needs (namely, some space and a lotta trees). A lot of 90s bands used Pixies dynamics, but Hum took them to a logical extreme on their debut outing: gently flowing guitars and trash compactor drums. Agonized shrieks and tender consolations. Rage, then comfort.

Hum's music would grow more detailed and restrained over the course of their career, but Electra2000 sees them at their absolute heaviest. It might be a little too much for some ("Scraper" is particularly fucking insane), and the vocals are, though they've never been Hum's strong point, especially flat and scratchy here. Electra2000 does care though; "Shovel"'s pretty sweet when the screams cease and the chorus hits, "Firehead" pines for motherly affection, and "Double Dip" is that shoulder to cry on (shortly before drowning). It's unrefined, but Electra2000 certainly has a heart somewhere in all that thrashing about.