NYC Record of the Month: The Babies – ‘Our House On The Hill’

Over a year’s passed since their debut album, and already The Babies are way past the sticky status of ‘side project’ – so as we welcome this new full-length, here’s to meeting up with a band on the rise, a fair few hundred miles on the counter, hungry for seconds. But no more sunbaked lethargy, merely a touch of nonchalance; no more Mr. Lo-Fi, yet still textures in plenty. Where they would have been smothered, the vocals throughout the entire record come out clear as ever. Is it bye bye to the Babies we knew? Definitely not. They’re simply opening up to a new facet of their sound, one they’d merely approached on the last album, and are finally pushing forward. What happens when The Babies leave the warm, fuzzy, crackling comfort of the womb? ‘Our House On The Hill’.

By far more ‘polished’ than the past releases (tighter too), the band’s sophomore album takes us to a space filled with nostalgia, where we meet the best of two worlds coming together. The stripped down sounds of a lulling folk song – that’s "That Boy" for you, or unexpectedly sparse "Mean." Looking for that narcoticly catchy steady-beat? Check out "Moonlight Mile" (streaming) and "Slow Walkin." And oin these twelve tracks, there’s still plenty of time for both these extremes to meet in the middle and rejoice in some raw sounding garage pop songs like "Mess Me Around." So, sure, those who swear only by colliding parts and the aesthetics of confusion might prefer the ‘oldies‘; but for the rest of us, it was sure worth the wait. – TM