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Hug is sheer novelty - something to amuse and offend listeners with their self-aware, completely ludicrous rock. It’s no surprise that the band pictured on the inside sleeve of their latest LP, Cravings, Lust, and Chaos, has two out of three members in a dress swaying back and forth in a drunk-possessed state, consumed by their own meta-pop about adulterous gay politicians, buying drugs in Mexico, and taking your pants off just for the hell of it.
Chaos plays like a cheap party trick. Stuck somewhere between blissfully unaware of its own tongue-in-cheek tackiness and subliminally insane, the tracks meander through patches of electro kraut-rock, socio-cultural narratives about humanity’s penchant for its own destruction, and a bout or two of actually listenable, tolerable, lucid moments, which unfortunately only work as relief from the rest of the album, and less as compliment.
Opening track “Take Your Pants Off” sounds decidedly party-rock for the majority of its repetitive three-or-so minutes, and the listener can almost picture all of the drunk, chubby, bearded dudes with nothing to lose, taking their pants off at their friends’ birthday parties and making everyone feel awkward. The fit continues on with the nearly unlistenable, half-way offensive “Caribbean Bathroom”, which details the story of a U.S. Senator receiving same sexual favors in an airport bathroom (what was his name again?) leaving you pondering exactly what it is you’re listening to. That is, until you get to “Ausgezichnet (Outstanding Breakfast)”, at which point you are forced to move onto the much more pertinent issues of “what is this guy saying?” and “why is it in German?”
For being a long-standing, underground, cult-backed, band in the city of the “Weird”, I have to cut Hug a little credit. This album, as far as I can tell, wasn’t meant to be any more seriously than their Myspace bio - its more an exercise in frivolous, ADD fun. Taken out of context, this music seems inauthentic, artless, dispassionate, and just plain not enjoyable, but perhaps it has a redeeming quality in the confines of Lovejoy’s Tap Room or defunct debauchery of Room 710. Over the ten tracks, one particular moment sticks out in this reviewer’s mind where the thought of “Hey, this isn’t so bad” resonated. At the utopian, optimistic chorus on “Hug is Love”, Hug sound normal and beautiful for a little bit - self-aware like a less-talented Tenacious D, but normal. Sadly, that notion was quickly quashed by the hedonism and necrophilia detailed in the narratives “Mexico” and “Escape from New York”.
For those who have found it in their hearts to appreciate Hug before, this record will certainly be no surprise or disappointment, just another tirade of a psychotic band trying to weird people out. It would be nice to think that even campy, party, neoteric bands posses the urge to break out of their niche and do something to be taken seriously, but apparently Hug isn’t really like any other bands and don’t want to be — all they want is for you to take your pants off.
Hug is Love is one of the most inspiring and uplifting with a big twist.