Happy Hollow (album)

Happy Hollow is the fifth album by the American indie rock band Cursive. It was released on August 22, 2006 on Saddle Creek Records. Saddle Creek Records began shipping pre-orders on August 8, 2006. The album is named after a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska.

Happy Hollow
Studio album by
Cursive
ReleasedAugust 22, 2006
GenreIndie rock
Length45:26
LabelSaddle Creek
ProducerTim Kasher and Mike Mogis
Cursive chronology
The Difference Between Houses and Homes
(2005)		 Happy Hollow
(2006)		 Mama, I'm Swollen
(2009)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic78/100[1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AbsolutePunk(90%)[2]
Allmusic[3]
Alternative Press[4]
ARTISTdirect[5]
Filter(87%)[6]
Pitchfork(6.7/10)[7]
Under the Radar(7/10)[8]

The album is the first since the departure of cellist Gretta Cohn[9] whose instrumentation was a fixture of the band's 2003 release The Ugly Organ. The album features significant five-piece horn arrangements courtesy of Nate Walcott.[10]

The lyrics of Happy Hollow form a concept album of sorts, revolving around a small town and its inhabitants, and dealing with concepts such as religious dogma and hypocrisy.

This album came with a download code to download the songs in mp3 format directly from Saddle Creek Records. Pre-orders of the album came with a miniature license plate that had a code to download a bonus track entitled "No News Is Bad News".

Concept

The album revolves around a small, upper class, God-fearing town of the same name (the name Happy Hollow coming from the affluent Omaha, NE neighborhood surrounding Happy Hollow Blvd). Each track in the album tells a different story of faults that the inhabitants of Happy Hollow portray that seem at odds with the town's "perfect" image. The final track, "Hymns for the Heathen," is an afterword of the album, describing the concepts explored in each of the 14 tracks.

The album has many biblical references, reflecting on Kasher's Catholic upbringing.

Track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Opening the Hymnal / Babies"2:32
2."Dorothy at Forty"3:02
3."Big Bang"3:56
4."Bad Sects"3:39
5."Flag and Family"2:56
6."Dorothy Dreams of Tornadoes"2:54
7."Retreat!"3:57
8."The Sunks"2:53
9."At Conception"2:57
10."So-So Gigolo"3:43
11."Bad Science"2:40
12."Into the Fold"4:16
13."Rise Up! Rise Up!"3:22
14."Hymns for the Heathen"2:39
Pre-order Bonus Track
No.TitleLength
15."No News Is Bad News"2:08

References
  1. "Happy Hollow by Cursive". Metacritic. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  2. AbsolutePunk review
  3. Happy Hollow at AllMusic
  4. Alternative Press No. 218
  5. ARTISTdirect review
  6. Filter Magazine No. 21
  7. Pitchfork review of Happy Hollow by Cursive on August 23, 2006 by Sam Ubl
  8. Under the Radar No. 14
  9. Cellist Gretta Cohn leaves Cursive
  10. Cursive talks about upcoming full length



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