“monsoon “ by Hippo Campus, Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Hippo Campus' debut record landmark comes five years into their career. A solid, unpretentious indie release, landmark is the perfect soundtrack to spring and summer. Musically, lead singer Jake Luppen in a hyper-aware, somewhat ironic lyric in the album's first full song "way it goes" describes the album as "easy going shit" in which the lead singer "just grab[s] a guitar and moan[s] and shit[s]." But while the "easy going" songs on landmark sound effortless, the lyrics certainly are not just nonsensical "moaning." Rich with imagery of time, color, and place, the songs on landmark start to become quite vibrant, showing the band's keen erudition in lyric writing.

IT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME.  In the middle of the "easy going" record, Hippo Campus shares a somber moment on the track "monsoon," which sounds a bit like it could fit in in the middle of Death Cab for Cutie's Plans.  Rather than a driving drum and bass on the upbeat tracks, the song opens with tones of a slide guitar, drum brushes, sustained notes on the trumpet, and notes on a piano giving the song its distinguishing sound.  The lyrics on this song are a little more opaque and poetic on this track, though this album has a big vocabulary throughout. On a first listen, it's clear that the song is about loss, with the refrain sending a chill down the listener's spine "It should've been me." Guitarist Nathan Stocker talks about writing this song about the day his older sister, Makenzie, was killed in a car accident in June of 2009. The elegy-like lyrics encapsulate a grief for a young life taken too soon. Like the members of Hippo Campus, Makenzie had professional aspirations to pursue the arts, in her case, in Russian ballet. 

JULY HAS ALWAYS BEEN SHY OF JUNE. The title of this song seems odd given that Hippo Campus generally stick to their geographical location of the northern mid-west on landmark. Although South Asia typically comes to mind when we talk about a monsoon, other parts of the world experience a rainy season. South Korea has (supposedly) entered its rainy season, though this year is a bit more splotchy. Vietnam experiences a monsoon season from April to October. The southwestern United States is said to have a rainy season, but there is no monsoon in the midwest. A song like monsoon demands a little bit of a pause. It's a summer storm in an otherwise sunny record. It's a sad song and its weight is felt, but the album doesn't stop there. The clouds clear and sunshine returns. The rain the lyrics talk about is certainly a cliché symbol for tears, but it's cliché because nothing else can effectively show that level of grief, much like how film makers have to set a funeral on a rainy day. A sunny day would make the tone inappropriate.  The events about which this song had happened nearly ten years prior to the song's recording. The song is sad, sentimental, but articulate and well-reflected. Just as Stocker plays the slide guitar as a kind of requiem for his sister, we get a chance to grieve. But then we realize that life moves forward and we take our grief with us. We move on in our own way. That person is still with us, but every day, we are able to cope just a little better.

Read the lyrics on Genius.
 

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