Album Review: The Howl And The Hum - 'Same Mistake Twice'
Honest, raw and open. Howl And The Hum have delivered a stunningly sombre masterpiece
In such a competitive industry, artists can sometimes give the feel of holding back, not wanting to expose too much of themselves to ensure they hit a target audience and writing what people want to hear. Hearing this record is a breath of fresh air, it is unique, expressive, and one of the most honest and personal records you may hear in a long time.
The band nearly didn’t survive the last few years, and born out of that is perhaps this honest and gutsy album. Title track ‘Same Mistake Twice’ is fantastic. It’s a song based on the principles of video games, where making mistakes allow you to go back to a checkpoint and start again, and how growing up playing these games has built up a lie about the preparations for adulthood. Of course, this is exaggerated to an extent, but it’s a very interesting proposition for a song. One of which allows frontman Sam Griffiths to explore the theme of accepting one's mistakes through adolescence and adulthood.
‘Dirt’ is a song that wouldn’t sound out of place on both a Taylor Swift, and Two Door Cinema Club record in the sense that it’s a brilliant work of songwriting craftsmanship with a light electric drum kit that drives the melody home. It’s a modern break up song that is relevant lyrically with lyrics such as:
“But baby who gets the Netflix now?
And how do we divide up the mutuals?
I wonder who writes our history,
And how do we decide what the future was?”
and
“I know all your passwords but you know mine as well
We’ve seen each other’s bodies at their worst and their best
Don’t tell about the terrible tattoo on my chest and we’ll
Delete each other’s nudes out of a sign of respect”
There’s great use of call and response in the track “Echo” cleverly using that line to deliver that skill. A slow builder with an offbeat swing to the song throughout. The song builds to then deliver a middle eight with the line of:
“I’m not afraid to die
I’m afraid of the terms and conditions
Maybe the reason that you never call
Is because you think I’ll never listen”
It is lyrics like above where this album is outstanding, and the acoustic stripped back moments of this song compliments it so well. Sam writes a lot of these songs on an acoustic, and it shows. in 'Pale Blue Dot' a light acoustic guitar being plucked, with a swirl of reverbed vocals really striking home lines like:
“I’m not asking for much
This ain’t no unreasonable crime
I just want to be loved
By everyone all of the time”
Every track offers a different feel. ‘Back In Time’ is a very hard hitting song, with thunderously strong piano chords and a heavily strummed acoustic guitar to bring home each lyric. It’s the perfect swirl of instruments dropping in and out at different moments, with a female vocal joining Sam towards the end of the song to catapult the song to its point.
Regardless of someone’s music taste, I would recommend this record to anyone. It’s thought-provoking, honest, and relatable. This is an album which could project the band to the next level of recognition, and if it doesn’t, then somethings wrong because it really should. This is definitely one of the records of the year. ‘Same Mistake Twice’ is scheduled for release on 6th September and is not to be missed.
Words by Doug Dewdney
