Every person with a Smart phone has been in this situation. You’re in a traffic jam and you hear a song you don’t know on the radio. “Might as well shazaam it,” you think. If you’ve heard one of Los Angeles natives Grouplove’s songs and are surprised after finding out the song you didn’t know, “Colours,” was by the same band that also plays “Itchin’ on a Photograph,” don’t feel bad. The only thing between Grouplove’s songs that tie them together seems to be Christian Zucconi’s Primus-like howl.
Never Trust a Happy Song starts off very strong with “Itchin’ on a Photograph,” “Tongue Tied,” and “Lovely Cup.” I could say that all three of these songs are Grouplove’s “signature sound” and they’re delivering “what they do best” but that’s not this band’s style. Every song I’ve just mentioned sound vastly different from each other. Funny this is, the band wrote all the songs on this album together. Is there such a thing as songwriting bipolar disorder? Not like I’m complaining, just very interesting and something you usually don’t see in current music. (Too risky!)
“Itchin’ on a Photograph” is probably one of my favorite rock singles of 2012. Zucconi and Hannah Hooper, who shares singing duties, blend together perfectly in this album opener about letting go of past mistakes (“Yeah I'm letting go of what I had/Yeah I'm itchin' on a photograph/Yeah I'm scratching on a thermostat/Yeah I'm letting go all of that I had”). This song reminds me a lot of the '90s rock era: Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Silverchair, Smashing Pumpkins, and the like.
Which is not what I think of when I hear the next song on the album and what the masses will probably know this band for, “Tongue Tied.” This is the band’s party song. Take me to your best friend’s house. Let’s party. Pretty self-explanatory. At first, you might hate this song because of its excruciating catchiness. But then, you hear it a couple more times on the radio in your car and, before you know it, you’re bouncing along to it at a stoplight!
“Lovely Cup” is a lovely song. Dare I say, the guitar riff has a little post-punk influence. The beginning sounds a lot like Interpol or Joy Division. Like “Itchin’ on a Photograph,” this song also uses Zucconi and Hooper’s voices together in a perfect way. You can tell their comfort and trust with one another just by listening. They play off one another very well and build on things the other is doing with their voice. This song is a really good example of that, not to mention that it’s just sweet, plain, and simple. “You’re such a lovely cup, why don’t you fill me up?” Brilliant line.
Another song that deserves its own paragraph is “Betty’s Bomb Shell.” It is not necessarily instrumentally impressive, but the lyrics are so descriptive and tell a really good story, all within three minutes. The song is about a couple living together and realizing it’s not working out -- a very relatable circumstance for a lot of people. “Betty said ‘Billy, why you making my face?/Since you moved in, you've been on a different page./You've been out of commission, hiding in the kitchen/Freddy came over and you couldn't even listen.’” If you’ve heard it in passing, you might not think it’s very impressive, but I always like to commend good storytelling when the credit is due.
Towards the end of the album, “Chloe” (Their country song--this band’s all over the place, I’m telling you,) and “Love Will Save Your Soul” are the songs you should be looking out for. I’m really surprised “Love Will Save Your Soul” isn’t a single yet -- it’s definitely single-worthy and probably the closest to the sound reminiscent on “Itchin’ on a Photograph” (which I think, is a very marketable sound in current rock music. So it would be an easy single to sell, from a marketing standpoint.) The best part of this song is towards the end, when Hooper is repeatedly yelling “love will always save your soul!” and the band yells back to her, “your soul!”
I could go on about every other song on this album but, honestly, I’d be writing a book. Every song is so different and have so many influences behind them, it’s just never ending. Regardless though, Never Trust a Happy Song is a plethora of genres rolled into one, but the band make it work.
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