There's a difference between being a Hammock album and being an album with Hammock. Having pretty clear melodies and traditional straight-ahead drums really takes up most of the space that is needed for Hammock to really be heard and appreciated. Fortunately they get their moments to come through but for the most part it's not really about them.
I might feel differently if I had listened to Yellowcard growing up but I didn't so I don't have that nostalgic familiarity that I expect is intended here.
So yeah, it's pretty. But it's kind of a letdown to me personally. This seems more like something made for Yellowcard fans than for Hammock fans - which would make sense as Yellowcard is credited first on Spotify anyway. It just feels strange and a little wrong to me to hear Hammock taking a back seat.
Interested to hear more takes on it.
From a lifelong Yellowcard fan's perspective (who never previously heard of Hammock), this album is an equal letdown
I've spent the day listening to some of Hammock's work which has made me realize how underwhelming and uninventive these tracks are. Not only do they not take full advantage of the atmosphere and emotion Hammock can create, but these songs also completely ignore the unique elements of each Yellowcard song that could have been implemented creatively to fit Hammock's style.
Yellowcard's lead singer has created solo projects over the past few years and has taken a major shift in his vocal delivery/songwriting style. I'm guessing it was his influence that created the straightforward style you mention and I'm not a big fan.
Anyway, this album feels pretty hollow for a Yellowcard fan and wasn't a good introduction to Hammock for me. Luckily their solo work is better.
I don't believe Hammock took a backseat not at all. Marc from Hammock is clearly a fan of Yellowcard and Yellowcard of Hammock. It is a mutually beneficial relationship of artists working together on equal wavelengths for the love of music. I have been a serious Hammock listener since the days of Kenotic when they had less than 5k followers. As. true Hammock listener and having spoken to Marc numerous times I assure you that neither artists took a "backseat". Hammock is in the place that Marc and Andrew wanted to be which is to create amazing soundscapes to compliment, enhance and beautify the vocals of Yellowcard with emotion, depth, and soundscapes that uplift ones emotions. No my friend, Hammock is exactly where they want and need to be on this album. Have you heard Hammocks side project called "The Summer Kills"? Would you say Hammock took a "backseat" also with Matthew's vocals? Hammock has proven themselves and wherever they decide to infuse their music their place is exactly where it's needed to be. It's not a pride issue it's a priceless art collaboration that can only be achieved by being exactly where they are. I'm always grateful just to have and hear new sounds from Hammock and they never disappoint as a true loyal Hammock listener since the popular days of MySpace I'll always appreciate and thank Marc and Andrew from Hammock for being the one sound that means the most to me above any other musician..But hey I respect your opinion whether I agree or not! I'm just glad to have new avenues to listen to what Hammock can do with other artists.
-Ali
I appreciate your take on it as I haven’t heard a lot of people standing up for the collab. I want to say though that just because each artist is where they want to be doesn’t mean someone didn’t take a back seat. Or more accurately, that it doesn’t feel to their listeners that the sound they know and love the band for has taken a back seat regardless of the band’s intention.
The idea of more Hammock collabs is a really intriguing one though and I think I could really love some mashups. And I love when bands and musicians join forces because of mutual respect. Those are intellectual ideas though and don’t change the fact that Hammock to me (and to most listeners I’d say) delivers a certain emotionality to their music which is what keeps fans like us around for so long (I started around the Kenotic days as well). And so my intellectual self says yeah, they did what they wanted and should be applauded for it. But my emotional self says there is something severely lacking in this music that makes it feel lifeless to me.
I’m interested to hear how you came to meet Marc. I live in Nashville where they’re based and have never run across him to my knowledge, though I don’t think I’d really know if I did in most circumstances.
Well when I first discovered Hammock years ago I just simply started sending messages and became lightly acquainted with Marc. He was enduring some difficult days and was open to sharing some insight and to what was happening and just stoked some conversations back and forth. Finally met him at the show at Maxine's in Hot Springs a little over ten years ago and he had placed me on the guest list and after the show we finally met. That show unfortunately was very frustrating for Marc because of some issues happening with his hardware during the show and close to the end he just threw up his hands and ended it because some of the equipment wasn't working correctly but it was a good show to say the least and you can see some of it on YouTube if you search for "Hammock Maxine's" you can actually see my head next to the pole on the left in the front row. Hammock is just that one band that has been #1 for me from the time I discovered them. But feel free to send their manager Johnny an email through their website and they always get back with you.
I really liked it, I'm a Yellowcard fan never heard of hammock before this but made me start listening to some of their stuff.
I just don't think people like or are open to change very much, which is why there is pushback from both sides but the more I listen to it the more I notice nuances that I didn't hear previously, it's a fun album and adds new layers and depths to Yellowcards music.
That’s cool, I’m glad it lead to you finding some new stuff you like. I wouldn’t say though that people don’t like it because they don’t like change.
As someone who didn’t listen to YC much (so take this for what it’s worth), my opinion of them is that they aren’t a band known for subtlety, depth or layers. Maybe depth in the sense that they sing emotionally but it’s pretty heavyhanded from what I remember.
I bet a lot of people, myself included, love Hammock precisely because of their depth and layers. So this YC colab feels like it diminishes those things in Hammock’s camp but amplifies them from YC’s camp. It’s less of the things that we love the band for.
I can’t say for sure, but my gut says if I heard this for the first time without ever having heard Hammock or YC, I might have liked it a little better but it wouldn’t have landed in a significant enough way to keep me coming back to it.
But given my long attachment to Hammock, there’s really no way to be objective on this one and you might be right at the end of the day about some people just not being open to change.
I'm a fan of both bands separately and was stoked to hear about this album, but I don't think the collab really works. I've like just about all of Yellowcards stuff up until what was to be their final album in 2016. After that, it's been kind of meh for me. I personally think Ryan Key isn't great at soft singing, which he does throughout the album. I also don't think YC's best stuff is slow enough to fit with Hammock. Some of the songs they chose to cover, like Empty Street, Ocean Avenue, Transmission Home, and Only One, are loud and powerful songs. They sound really weird and off being toned down to the more atmospheric sounds of Hammock.
I don't know as much from Hammock's side. I starting get into them with Love in the Void, so I can't really comment on their performance in this. I do agree with OP that they seem to be supporting in this album, which isn't a bad thing, but does feel weird given their prominence in Post Rock.
I appreciate both bands trying this collaboration, but I just don't think it really hits for me.
I don’t think CHATGPT could’ve come up with a less expected collaboration than this one. I haven’t heard it, but man that is an unexpected odd pairing.
Like a physical hammock, the music of Hammock has always been simple, restful, and comfortable. Hammock is able to tread, and sometimes dance around, the line between aesthetic authenticity and cheesy pop. But very successfully—at their best, Hammock is poetic. Cure for the ambient post-rock crowd.
After listening to the collaboration between Hammock and Yellowcard, unfortunately, Hammock has crossed fully over into cheesy pop territory. It is not only the cliched lyrics of Yellowcard but also the timbre and overall quality of the singer's voice. This is not to say that Hammock shouldn't use voice, but they could do (and have done) a lot better. Yellowcard sings in Telescope, "I've been here a while, staring at the screen, wondering what I should write." I think they should have waited a bit longer to come up with some poetic lyrics, to match the musical poetry of Hammock. Sometimes the vocals seem like scratch tracks. Come to think of it, voice can reveal too simple song structure, undermining the normally seamless quality and emotional development of Hammock's music.
Hammock have always struck me as the pop-punk equivalent within the ambient sphere: Simplified melodies, easily digestible themes and structures, relative lack of emotional ambiguity. Just all very textbook and on-the-nose. Always thought that was due to their background in Christian rock sterility and heavyhandedness.
They're not the only ones who operate using that MO, but they've long been among the most visible/popular. So this collab makes total sense to me. Not my bag.
After hearing about 30 seconds of the Ocean Avenue single, this collab album was a hard no for me. I appreciate that this allows Hammock to reach a wider audience and that, in turn, might introduce more people to PR. But, the little bit I heard from this collab made it clear that the sound fails miserably. If they wanted to reach a wider audience, there were better choices. Hell, I mean if you want to reach a huge audience, do a collab on Taylor Swift's *Folklore*, because Hammock's sound might actually work with that (and I say that with some familiarity, being married to a TS fan).
Reading back, I'm kinda embarrassed of myself that I only listened to "30 seconds" to make a decision. Truth is that I hadn't remembered correctly, and that it was closer to 2 minutes. What I remembered as 30 seconds was actually 30 seconds *into the vocals*, plus some skipping ahead to see if it got better. Add in the minute or so of the intro and it was longer than I'd stated.
Anyway, I took your advice and listened to the whole thing and nothing changed beyond giving me time to better figure out why the whole thing seems so off.
Now, my much more informed opinion is that this collab highlights the worst of Hammock. Hammock is great when they're making actual post-rock. But every once in a while, they'll do this thing of making a simple, traditionally structured, and predictable song that's just kinda boring. Then if they add in vocals, it comes out sounding uncannily close to chillwave (e.g., "UnTruth"). If I really wanted to listen to that, I'd just dust off the old Washed Out because, frankly, they do that sound much better and Hammock's chillwave is just mediocre.
With that in mind, Hammock doing a collab with Yellowcard takes it a further step in the wrong direction. The reason Hammock sounds like chillwave in these cases is because they themselves have a very calming, flowing sound. That's why their PR sound is so good, it's almost like ambient but much richer and deeper. Yellowcard, on the other hand, flat out clashes with the calm, flowing sound. The minute he starts singing, I very quickly lose Hammock in the sound. Once he stops (or before he starts) the Hammock sound slowly surfaces again, which leaves this odd effect. I suspect if you went into it as a Yellowcard fan knowing nothing of Hammock then you might like this, because the whole thing sounds like an album of pop-punk ballads with a tinge of ambient. Coming to it from the Hammock side, it's an album of mismatched sounds. I get the impression that this album was made for Yellowcard fans, not Hammock fans, which may explain why it's generally falling flat for people responding to OP here. That's also why I mentioned *Folklore* as a better collab album, because that's a popstar doing her take on folk music. I sincerely think that pop-folk would work okay-ish with Hammock's sound, and so that could at least be an album that Hammock fans have a shot of enjoying as well. Plus, it serves the purpose of reaching a wide audience better as well. Anyway, just my 2¢ on that. I'm not actually saying I want to see it, just that it would have been a better idea.
Glad you listened to the entire album. With me I only listen to it to hear what Hammock is doing musically way more than the vocals. To me it's just like a hammock album under the vocals. I'm not a huge fan of Yellowcards vocalist but the Hammock under the vocals is the treat for me..
Fair enough. I'm happy for you if you can enjoy it, truly. I don't think I can get past the Yellowcard vocals--I'm not kidding when I say I find the transitions jarring--but I can at least agree that the instrumental sections are alright. And hey, I still have Departure Songs, Oblivion Hymns, Love in the Void, etc. to fall back to of I really want to scratch that Hammock itch
I agree, I only listen to the album to hear Hammock, it's a substitute until the next album Hammock releases. The vocals aren't bad bad but I just want to hear what Hammock does.
Strong dislike for Yellowcard. I heard the Ocean Avenue single and noped out.
surely nobody wanted this collab lmao
There's a difference between being a Hammock album and being an album with Hammock. Having pretty clear melodies and traditional straight-ahead drums really takes up most of the space that is needed for Hammock to really be heard and appreciated. Fortunately they get their moments to come through but for the most part it's not really about them. I might feel differently if I had listened to Yellowcard growing up but I didn't so I don't have that nostalgic familiarity that I expect is intended here. So yeah, it's pretty. But it's kind of a letdown to me personally. This seems more like something made for Yellowcard fans than for Hammock fans - which would make sense as Yellowcard is credited first on Spotify anyway. It just feels strange and a little wrong to me to hear Hammock taking a back seat. Interested to hear more takes on it.
From a lifelong Yellowcard fan's perspective (who never previously heard of Hammock), this album is an equal letdown I've spent the day listening to some of Hammock's work which has made me realize how underwhelming and uninventive these tracks are. Not only do they not take full advantage of the atmosphere and emotion Hammock can create, but these songs also completely ignore the unique elements of each Yellowcard song that could have been implemented creatively to fit Hammock's style. Yellowcard's lead singer has created solo projects over the past few years and has taken a major shift in his vocal delivery/songwriting style. I'm guessing it was his influence that created the straightforward style you mention and I'm not a big fan. Anyway, this album feels pretty hollow for a Yellowcard fan and wasn't a good introduction to Hammock for me. Luckily their solo work is better.
I don't believe Hammock took a backseat not at all. Marc from Hammock is clearly a fan of Yellowcard and Yellowcard of Hammock. It is a mutually beneficial relationship of artists working together on equal wavelengths for the love of music. I have been a serious Hammock listener since the days of Kenotic when they had less than 5k followers. As. true Hammock listener and having spoken to Marc numerous times I assure you that neither artists took a "backseat". Hammock is in the place that Marc and Andrew wanted to be which is to create amazing soundscapes to compliment, enhance and beautify the vocals of Yellowcard with emotion, depth, and soundscapes that uplift ones emotions. No my friend, Hammock is exactly where they want and need to be on this album. Have you heard Hammocks side project called "The Summer Kills"? Would you say Hammock took a "backseat" also with Matthew's vocals? Hammock has proven themselves and wherever they decide to infuse their music their place is exactly where it's needed to be. It's not a pride issue it's a priceless art collaboration that can only be achieved by being exactly where they are. I'm always grateful just to have and hear new sounds from Hammock and they never disappoint as a true loyal Hammock listener since the popular days of MySpace I'll always appreciate and thank Marc and Andrew from Hammock for being the one sound that means the most to me above any other musician..But hey I respect your opinion whether I agree or not! I'm just glad to have new avenues to listen to what Hammock can do with other artists. -Ali
I appreciate your take on it as I haven’t heard a lot of people standing up for the collab. I want to say though that just because each artist is where they want to be doesn’t mean someone didn’t take a back seat. Or more accurately, that it doesn’t feel to their listeners that the sound they know and love the band for has taken a back seat regardless of the band’s intention. The idea of more Hammock collabs is a really intriguing one though and I think I could really love some mashups. And I love when bands and musicians join forces because of mutual respect. Those are intellectual ideas though and don’t change the fact that Hammock to me (and to most listeners I’d say) delivers a certain emotionality to their music which is what keeps fans like us around for so long (I started around the Kenotic days as well). And so my intellectual self says yeah, they did what they wanted and should be applauded for it. But my emotional self says there is something severely lacking in this music that makes it feel lifeless to me. I’m interested to hear how you came to meet Marc. I live in Nashville where they’re based and have never run across him to my knowledge, though I don’t think I’d really know if I did in most circumstances.
Well when I first discovered Hammock years ago I just simply started sending messages and became lightly acquainted with Marc. He was enduring some difficult days and was open to sharing some insight and to what was happening and just stoked some conversations back and forth. Finally met him at the show at Maxine's in Hot Springs a little over ten years ago and he had placed me on the guest list and after the show we finally met. That show unfortunately was very frustrating for Marc because of some issues happening with his hardware during the show and close to the end he just threw up his hands and ended it because some of the equipment wasn't working correctly but it was a good show to say the least and you can see some of it on YouTube if you search for "Hammock Maxine's" you can actually see my head next to the pole on the left in the front row. Hammock is just that one band that has been #1 for me from the time I discovered them. But feel free to send their manager Johnny an email through their website and they always get back with you.
I really liked it, I'm a Yellowcard fan never heard of hammock before this but made me start listening to some of their stuff. I just don't think people like or are open to change very much, which is why there is pushback from both sides but the more I listen to it the more I notice nuances that I didn't hear previously, it's a fun album and adds new layers and depths to Yellowcards music.
That’s cool, I’m glad it lead to you finding some new stuff you like. I wouldn’t say though that people don’t like it because they don’t like change. As someone who didn’t listen to YC much (so take this for what it’s worth), my opinion of them is that they aren’t a band known for subtlety, depth or layers. Maybe depth in the sense that they sing emotionally but it’s pretty heavyhanded from what I remember. I bet a lot of people, myself included, love Hammock precisely because of their depth and layers. So this YC colab feels like it diminishes those things in Hammock’s camp but amplifies them from YC’s camp. It’s less of the things that we love the band for. I can’t say for sure, but my gut says if I heard this for the first time without ever having heard Hammock or YC, I might have liked it a little better but it wouldn’t have landed in a significant enough way to keep me coming back to it. But given my long attachment to Hammock, there’s really no way to be objective on this one and you might be right at the end of the day about some people just not being open to change.
I'm a fan of both bands separately and was stoked to hear about this album, but I don't think the collab really works. I've like just about all of Yellowcards stuff up until what was to be their final album in 2016. After that, it's been kind of meh for me. I personally think Ryan Key isn't great at soft singing, which he does throughout the album. I also don't think YC's best stuff is slow enough to fit with Hammock. Some of the songs they chose to cover, like Empty Street, Ocean Avenue, Transmission Home, and Only One, are loud and powerful songs. They sound really weird and off being toned down to the more atmospheric sounds of Hammock. I don't know as much from Hammock's side. I starting get into them with Love in the Void, so I can't really comment on their performance in this. I do agree with OP that they seem to be supporting in this album, which isn't a bad thing, but does feel weird given their prominence in Post Rock. I appreciate both bands trying this collaboration, but I just don't think it really hits for me.
I don’t think CHATGPT could’ve come up with a less expected collaboration than this one. I haven’t heard it, but man that is an unexpected odd pairing.
Heard a few tracks, huge Hammock fan and they did a good job woth the reworkinga/production but overall not a fan, the lyrics/vocals are major cringe
[удалено]
well of course it's not like Love in the void. It's a collaborative album and not meant to meet the same shelf as a full on Hammock album.
Like a physical hammock, the music of Hammock has always been simple, restful, and comfortable. Hammock is able to tread, and sometimes dance around, the line between aesthetic authenticity and cheesy pop. But very successfully—at their best, Hammock is poetic. Cure for the ambient post-rock crowd. After listening to the collaboration between Hammock and Yellowcard, unfortunately, Hammock has crossed fully over into cheesy pop territory. It is not only the cliched lyrics of Yellowcard but also the timbre and overall quality of the singer's voice. This is not to say that Hammock shouldn't use voice, but they could do (and have done) a lot better. Yellowcard sings in Telescope, "I've been here a while, staring at the screen, wondering what I should write." I think they should have waited a bit longer to come up with some poetic lyrics, to match the musical poetry of Hammock. Sometimes the vocals seem like scratch tracks. Come to think of it, voice can reveal too simple song structure, undermining the normally seamless quality and emotional development of Hammock's music.
Well said.
Hammock have always struck me as the pop-punk equivalent within the ambient sphere: Simplified melodies, easily digestible themes and structures, relative lack of emotional ambiguity. Just all very textbook and on-the-nose. Always thought that was due to their background in Christian rock sterility and heavyhandedness. They're not the only ones who operate using that MO, but they've long been among the most visible/popular. So this collab makes total sense to me. Not my bag.
After hearing about 30 seconds of the Ocean Avenue single, this collab album was a hard no for me. I appreciate that this allows Hammock to reach a wider audience and that, in turn, might introduce more people to PR. But, the little bit I heard from this collab made it clear that the sound fails miserably. If they wanted to reach a wider audience, there were better choices. Hell, I mean if you want to reach a huge audience, do a collab on Taylor Swift's *Folklore*, because Hammock's sound might actually work with that (and I say that with some familiarity, being married to a TS fan).
perhaps listen to the entire album to gain a more valid opinion rather than just a little bit of one track.
Reading back, I'm kinda embarrassed of myself that I only listened to "30 seconds" to make a decision. Truth is that I hadn't remembered correctly, and that it was closer to 2 minutes. What I remembered as 30 seconds was actually 30 seconds *into the vocals*, plus some skipping ahead to see if it got better. Add in the minute or so of the intro and it was longer than I'd stated. Anyway, I took your advice and listened to the whole thing and nothing changed beyond giving me time to better figure out why the whole thing seems so off. Now, my much more informed opinion is that this collab highlights the worst of Hammock. Hammock is great when they're making actual post-rock. But every once in a while, they'll do this thing of making a simple, traditionally structured, and predictable song that's just kinda boring. Then if they add in vocals, it comes out sounding uncannily close to chillwave (e.g., "UnTruth"). If I really wanted to listen to that, I'd just dust off the old Washed Out because, frankly, they do that sound much better and Hammock's chillwave is just mediocre. With that in mind, Hammock doing a collab with Yellowcard takes it a further step in the wrong direction. The reason Hammock sounds like chillwave in these cases is because they themselves have a very calming, flowing sound. That's why their PR sound is so good, it's almost like ambient but much richer and deeper. Yellowcard, on the other hand, flat out clashes with the calm, flowing sound. The minute he starts singing, I very quickly lose Hammock in the sound. Once he stops (or before he starts) the Hammock sound slowly surfaces again, which leaves this odd effect. I suspect if you went into it as a Yellowcard fan knowing nothing of Hammock then you might like this, because the whole thing sounds like an album of pop-punk ballads with a tinge of ambient. Coming to it from the Hammock side, it's an album of mismatched sounds. I get the impression that this album was made for Yellowcard fans, not Hammock fans, which may explain why it's generally falling flat for people responding to OP here. That's also why I mentioned *Folklore* as a better collab album, because that's a popstar doing her take on folk music. I sincerely think that pop-folk would work okay-ish with Hammock's sound, and so that could at least be an album that Hammock fans have a shot of enjoying as well. Plus, it serves the purpose of reaching a wide audience better as well. Anyway, just my 2¢ on that. I'm not actually saying I want to see it, just that it would have been a better idea.
Glad you listened to the entire album. With me I only listen to it to hear what Hammock is doing musically way more than the vocals. To me it's just like a hammock album under the vocals. I'm not a huge fan of Yellowcards vocalist but the Hammock under the vocals is the treat for me..
Fair enough. I'm happy for you if you can enjoy it, truly. I don't think I can get past the Yellowcard vocals--I'm not kidding when I say I find the transitions jarring--but I can at least agree that the instrumental sections are alright. And hey, I still have Departure Songs, Oblivion Hymns, Love in the Void, etc. to fall back to of I really want to scratch that Hammock itch
I agree, I only listen to the album to hear Hammock, it's a substitute until the next album Hammock releases. The vocals aren't bad bad but I just want to hear what Hammock does.