Local Review: Hoppy – Little While

Hoppy
Little While
HoppyRadio
Street: 09.24
Hoppy = Harry Styles + John Mayer

On their accessibly groovy new record Little While, Hoppy infuses low-fi indie pop with pleasantly tame jazz jams. The album’s cover shows a cassette tape with a homemade label resting on pillowy red silk, and this tableau is the perfect metaphor for what Little While delivers: velvety musicianship alongside nostalgic lyricism. 

The record’s eponymous first track opens with a funky bass and ethereal synths layered beneath flangey guitar quacks. Samples of unintelligible voices intermittently interrupt this atmospheric soundscape, as if the song is a little haunted. Then, singer Colt Hopkins comes in with, “It’s been a little while. / How you feeling? / Thanks for checking in. / I’m still breathing” over swelling distortion which bleeds directly into the album’s second track. 

Despite this almost psychedelic beginning, Little While proves to be an invariably smooth and straightforward ride thereafter. Across the record’s remaining 22-ish minutes, Hoppy strikes a balance between laid-back and upbeat with charming melodies, affable guitars and languid drum beats. There isn’t a single song here I wouldn’t call radio-friendly.

In stark contrast to these easy-going vibes, the album’s lyrics are pretty melancholy and dwell on themes like lost love and letting go. Take “Still Breathing” for example. In this song, Hopkins asserts, “I’m still breathing even if I don’t wanna… Don’t go killing yourself for something you should be over by now.” 

Similarly wistful lyrics crop up in every song, such as “You never know what you had until it’s gone” on “Changes” and “The Casio still fits me nice, but I wish you never made it mine” on the album’s single, “The Casio.” In his suave tenor that always sounds like it’s passing through a toothy grin no matter how somber the subject matter, Hopkins cleverly uses the band’s fun and inviting instrumentation as a stage whereon to mourn troubled romance. This lyricism adds a doleful flavor to a record that might otherwise be a little too saccharine. 

Hopkins’ impeccable vocals notwithstanding, the album’s best track is actually the instrumental seventh song, “2:11”. This little number is largely dominated by a happy-go-lucky trumpet, but the band passes the spotlight around like a combo at a nightclub to give both the guitar and the keys space for an unhurried solo apiece. “Let’s take a little morning stroll, you and I,” the song seems to say. “The sun is shining and there’s nothing in this world to concern ourselves with.” In times as troubled as the ones we’re living through, these little bits of musical escapism can be a restorative balm for the world-weary. 

And while Hoppy leisurely dips into R&B and jazz formulas many times across the record’s eight tracks, the stakes are always kept low. There’s precious little experimentation or negotiation of boundaries. Bitches Brew this ain’t. To be clear, this lack of improvisational vigor isn’t necessarily a shortcoming. But as the band displays on “2:11”, they have the chops to reach for the intimidating vistas that jazz affords the brave, so it feels like this record represents a missed opportunity to reach for something audacious.

At its worst, this play-it-safe approach means that Little While sometimes veers dangerously close to elevator music. But at its best, the album unfolds into an idyllic nirvana for pop-junkies by avoiding challenging rhythms and complex refrains. 

Soothing and syrupy, Little While is the perfect crowd-pleaser to throw on at a party or unwind with after a long day. And though it would be cool to see Hoppy venture into more formidable musical waters in the future, they do easy listening well enough that they could also just stay the course and keep producing first-rate feel-good tunes. –Joe Roberts

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