Some bands sound like they could have sprung up from anywhere, and some sound like they come from a distinct place (Springsteen and Jersey, for instance). There’s something incredibly California about Human Barbie’s sound, and not in a Red Hot Chili Peppers sort of way. There’s a heat-haze to the chorused synth and a too-brightness that makes the loneliness worse, and I love them for it.
Paradise is a concise full-length at nine tracks, with not a song wasted and nothing overstaying its welcome. They describe themselves with three terms on Bandcamp: lofi, analog, and pop. We flirt with the 80s but never let it take us home. We can hear some of the Elliot Smith of it all in the more somber tracks, and there’s a bit of War on Drugs grandeur. But nobody’s cosplaying here—Human Barbie’s blend is really uniquely theirs.
We start with a track called Invocation, which immediately puts this dork (yours truly) in the world of Greek myth. From The Iliad:
Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus—
that murderous anger which condemned Achaeans
to countless agonies and threw many warrior souls
deep into Hades, leaving their dead bodies
carrion food for dogs and birds—
all in fulfilment of the will of Zeus.
And then from The Odyssey:
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns …
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Am I stretching to make this comparison? We’re not invoking a particular poetic goddess so much as that old muse, Heartbreak, on Paradise‘s lead track “Invocation”:
Dear god I’m stuck forever
Shipwrecked at the gates of heaven…
So I crawled all over this island
The warbly piano and the ghostly vocals bring you right to the weird roundness of the island in question—and yet there’s an odd sort of R&B vibe to this track that really works for me.
A white temple but there’s nothing inside it
I cry out but I’m all alone, oh no
Voice echoing raw like a phantom
From here we leap into “The Truth of Love”, the first full-length song on the record, in many ways staple fare of the indie-alt-pop world. I think you could make a playlist of indie songs that use this particular drum groove and listen to nothing but let’s drive, cowboy tunes for a week straight.
Fans of Lord Huron will fall in love easily with this track in particular: The chorus has that same percussive melody that made me fall in love with their Lonesome Dreams record.
Standout track: “Fantasie“
For me, the moment we first get acoustic guitar on the record is when the album really clicks. This is my favorite song on the record, a bit of The War on Drugs, a little bit of 60s-style background vocal do-do-do’s, and a damn near perfect bass line. It’s active, taking lots of space, but not busy or trying hard to impress us. Each note passed between the chord changes is settled into the drum groove so well that you can listen a few times before you even really notice how badass it is.
A great encapsulation of what makes HB such a fun act: They mix it up from song to song – from section to section, even – but we’ve always got that steady easygoing vibe. At least, until Elliot Smith’s ghost shows up.
“Ghosted“
The dead string acoustic guitar is such a vibe on this song: From the first couple of bars, we know we’re fucking in for it.
Missing your body
Feel like an afterthought
Said you could love me
But suddenly maybe not
“Madly“
We flew blind
Near the sun
Burned our wings
And fell like stone
Mythology nerds confirmed, baby: That’s an Icarus reference! Justification for my ridiculous opening aside, this is a great tune. The sort of telephone effect on the vocals really suits the delivery of the lyrics.
It’s easy to shit-talk long 80s pads with their warbling and slightly detuned feeling, especially in a post-Stranger Things world. But the way Human Barbie uses them on this track – and on the more nostalgic pieces of production all over Paradise as an album – merits standing on its own.
(An aside: At this point we’ve had ’80s-influenced synth in music for easily two-to-three decades of active use, and I feel we’ve used it far more than artists did in the actual ’80s. So when do we get to just claim it for ourselves? The people who invented this music are old by now. I’m sure we can take ‘em. /j)
There’s more to say about this record – the last few songs especially – but I’ve hit my word count, and to quote Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Don’t overwrite your freelance gigs, fam.”
TL;DR: This record is great from front to back, and you should listen to it below.
Written by Willow Stonebeck
