LP Review: The Human Hearts - Viable

Another album I've been meaning to write about for a few months.

The Human Hearts

Viable

(Open Boat) thehumanhearts.bandcamp.com/album/viable

Nothing Painted Blue's Emotional Discipline (Scat, 1997) could be considered as the indie rock equivalent of  Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady. Like the British band's collection of eight 7" releases, the Upland, CA group compiled singles that appeared on a variety of different labels, profiling a group that could deliver graduate school-level post-punk lyrics while rocking out at the same time. With more music on it than the Buzzcocks' release, the tidal wave of hits keep coming for about an hour. Why that album isn't recognized in tandem with all the other oft-lauded albums from that period is beyond me. 

Now Franklin Bruno, the voice and wit from ∅PB, has undertaken a similar effort with his current band, the Human Hearts. Viable commits previously released material to vinyl, some for the first time, with a handful of singles, a digital EP and a few solo songs that were available through a Kickstarter campaign; all 14 tracks came out between 2011 and 2015. In addition to proving that Bruno is still a songwriter with a skill at great couplets, the seemingly random assortment of tracks reveal the wide range of his writing skills.

Songs like the darkly humorous "Flag Pin" and driving "Art Books" play to his skillful rock tendencies. At the same time, "Last Words of Her Lover," with lyrics taken from a poem by Helen Adam and sung by Bruno's wife Bree Benton, wouldn't sound out of place in a current musical or pithy supper club setting. Accompanied by some lonely piano chords and melancholy violas, Bruno himself sings "Nick Cave" with a certain in-the-spotlight pathos usually reserved for the theater (which, naturally, he counters with the song's wry tale of fan worship aimed at the subject). 

Among the rotating group of  bandmates, Bruno's longtime friend Jenny Toomey (Tsunami, Simple Machines Records) handles the vocals on a couple songs. The tradition continues in covering a song by a peer, in this case the band Wckr Spgt's odd and somewhat unsettling "Terrible Criminal" gets the Bruno treatment. "June Is As Cold As December" originally done by the Everly Brothers, also gets a faithful rendition, complete with some harmonies from longtime Human Hearts drummer Matt Houser.

Last summer, Bruno suffered a heart attack while vacationing in France. Thanks largely to the health care system in that country, the singer/guitarist was able to receive immediate treatment and was performing again before the year was out. As a fan and something of an acquaintance of Mr. B, it was scary to imagine someone so gifted being taken from us like that. I'm glad that he's better and hope that the new Human Hearts album will be in our hands before too long. 

Finally, the cover of Viable presents another homage - a hat tip to the new wave-era colors and cover art that were prevalent around 1980, specifically Epic Records' Nu-Disk series.