Review of Cursive - Happy Hollow
Cursive's Happy Hollow (2006)
Happy Hollow (2006) is Cursive’s fifth full-length album, released after an indefinite hiatus by the band and more than three years after the highly acclaimed The Ugly Organ (2003). Happy Hollow was forced into a departure from Cursive’s previous sound, as cellist Greta Cohn had announced her departure from the band about one year before its release. A horn section was introduced to fill the void on Happy Hollow, but in many places it fails to properly fill the cello’s emotionally charged shoes. Beloved frontman Tim Kasher presents a different sound as well: his signature screams are notably absent throughout most of the album. Screaming is something that can be done really well or really poorly; for Kasher and Cursive, the screaming felt passionate, adding dimension to heart-wrenching lyrics sung over woeful melodies. Speaking of lyrics, those are different too; abandoning themes of relationships such as in 2000’s Domestica, which depicts a tumultuous relationship between “Sweetie” and “Pretty Baby,” Cursive instead criticizes oppressive government and stifling religious views - probably the first things anyone would think of to criticize in an album. The album is also organized into fourteen “hymns” telling stories of the fictional Happy Hollow’s inhabitants, using the Wizard of Oz as an extended metaphor throughout the album. Put simply, this is not your father’s Cursive.
Track 1, “Opening the Hymnal / Babies,” introduces the listener to the album (”Welcome one, and welcome all / To our small town”) and outlines the album’s organization as fourteen “hymns for the heathen.” The first of these hymns is the “Son of God complex,” described in the latter half of the song as an apostrophe to baby Jesus:
Baby, baby, baby, you learn so fast
You seem to carry a special gift
Maybe you’ve been given to this world to make a difference
Such delusions we all struggle with
But the beautiful truth of it is
This is all we are, we simply exist
Track 2, “Dorothy at Forty,” was released as a teaser before the actual release of the album; as the second hymn, “the prodigal damsel,” it critiques the archetypal American Dream, using the Wizard of Oz as a metaphor:
Dorothy, I know you’ve had amazing dreams
We can’t go chasing down this golden street
Each and every rainbow, each passion, each unattainable goal
We’re not in dreamland anymore
Kasher argues that getting lost in dreams precludes actual accomplishment: “Dreams are all you’ve had / Dreams have held you back / Dreamers never live / Only dream of it.”
Tracks 3 and 4, “Big Bang” and “Bad Sects,” critique the forced views and deontology of organized religion. “Big Bang” points to the Church’s failure to account for the eponymous origin-of-life theory; “Bad Sects” tells of a priest’s sexual encounter with a pupil, and the fear of societal repercussion (”You’ll never live this down”) for undefined, yet existent reasons (”I know this is wrong / ‘Cause we’re told this is wrong”).
“Flag and Family” — or as the fifth hymn, “the brute kiss of Judas,” describes a relationship wherein a young man with little future is evaluated by his and his girlfriend’s parents. He is told to go to war — a decision that, apparently, his girlfriend Lucy initially rejects but then accepts. (”I put up with your family / Full of bigots and fanatics / Just to get a little closer to you / Now you have turned on me too”).
Tracks 6 and 7, “Dorothy Dreams of Tornaodes” and “Retreat!”, to me fill like filler. Track 8, “The Sunks,” I feel is interesting only because it sounds more like old Cursive than most of the album — not angsty, screaming Cursive, but brooding, mellow Cursive — “Into the Fold” fits this sound as well. Track 9, “At Conception,” features some excellent word play. As hymn 9, “immaculate exception,” it tells of a priest who consoles a young girl whose boyfriend has gone off to war (cohesive lyrics are definitely something Happy Hollow has going for it), “More so than some neighbors deem necessary / But you just can’t measure young love.” Father Cole “holds the record for turning 12 girls around” — his method of consolation is to sleep with young girls. The song accuses religion of being self-serving; after being told by one girl that she is pregnant, Cole replies “Jeanie, that simply cannot be / You can’t conceive such mortal sins / Everything will be all right.” To cover his misdoings, he delivers a sermon: “Fater Cole, he’s been acting out of sorts / That strange sermon he gave / Accepting termination due to rape.”
Track 13, the penultimate “Rise Up! Rise Up!”, offers a clear summation of Kasher’s views, recounted as a confessional. Kasher wishes his message to be taken in moderation — “I’m not saying let’s burn down the church” — but he does disagree with the single-minded, oppressive specter of religion and feels obligated to question what everyone else seems to accept as fact:
Please forgive me for questioning divinity
It’s a ugly job but I think I’m up for it
I’m not saying who’s right
I’m just saying there’s more than one way to skin a religion
There’s more than one way to explain our existence
The end of this song features some of the most emphasized and memorable lyrics in the album, offered up as Kasher’s “greatest confession:”
I wasted half of my life on the thought that I’d live forever
I wasn’t raised to seize the day
But to work and worship
Because he that liveth and believeth
Supposedly never dies
It’s easy to tell how Kasher feels now about this belief. The final track, “Hymns for the Heathen,” serves as an epilogue; every track is given a hymn name (”Bad Sects” being “the passion of the chaplain,” et cetera).
The many changes that Cursive underwent between The Ugly Organ and Happy Hollow do, at least, make sense with each other; I know I would sing and write more emotionally about relationships than about religious ignorance and narrow-mindedness. But the sound isn’t as fulfilling of a listen as the former Cursive - there is far less discernible anger, sadness, and confusion on Happy Hollow than on previous albums, making the album feel less exciting. Happy Hollow is still worth a listen - by no means is it a bad album - but I don’t see it as a good representation of Cursive’s sound, and I certainly don’t consider it their best work. It’s an interesting departure, but not much more than that. The themes are overdone (though to be fair, the old “love sucks” motif wasn’t the most original one either), and the music, while coming close at some points, just isn’t the same without the cello. If you’re new to Cursive, give this album a try, but not as your first taste of the band’s sound; I’d recommend The Ugly Organ for a great listen of Cursive at their best.
Cursive - Dorothy at Forty