Austin Sound

Following up their full-of-promise inaugural EP from last year, Hollywood Gossip’s debut full-length finds the band exactly where you would hope to find them. Dear as Diamonds displays an impressive leap in sonic maturity. Whereas You’re So Quiet was a pop purist’s delight, propelled by tunes like “Bicycle” and “Something’s Happening,” Dear as Diamond manages to rock a little more and strike a more reflective tone, but without losing that pop sheen. In progression, the album and band at this point are reminiscent of fellow local pop prospects the Sour Notes. The swooning vocal dives, the jangled guitars, and kick-stepped pep of percussion all feel wonderfully familiar and comfortable, yet surprising moments continually drive the quartet into some impressive new territories.

Still reeling from the (not that surprising) breakup of Voxtrot? Well, here are your new Austin pop idols. We’ve been keeping tabs on Hollywood Gossip since their debut EP, You’re So Quiet, got us moving to kick off 2009. And now the local quartet has their debut full-length dropping this weekend. Called Dear as Diamonds, it clearly shows the band getting ahold of their sound and maturing, while not letting go of any of the bopping delight that we loved in the first place. Below, you can download the lead single from the album, “Narcissus in a Window”, which honestly sounds like a super jangled-out cut from the Smiths. In other words, pretty dang good! Hollywood Gossip will be celebrating the CD release at the Ghost Room this Saturday, June 19th, along with Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves and One Hundred Flowers.

We loved Hollywood Gossip’s recently released debut album, You’re So Quiet, the kind of pure shot of pop perfection that grabs you and doesn’t let go. The local quartet is exuberant and draws justified comparisons to any number of top poppers, but the group also has a distinctly Austin flavor to their songs, reveling in a willfully youthful and resistant celebration of refusing to let maturity take hold without a fight, even as it inevitably impedes with reality. As Jonathan Richman once implored, “Don’t let our youth go waste,” so we recommend you catch Hollywood Gossip this Saturday, January 24 at Club DeVille as they help Built By Snow release their new album. Also on the bill are the Bubbles and The McKenzies.

Hollywood Gossip’s debut EP closes with the song “Something’s Happening,” a joyful pop collision apparently intended as an ode to Austin and its music scene. It’s a fantastic tune, and culls an array of notable local artists like Miranda Brown, Jeff Johnston, the Breather’s Claire Hamilton, and Voxtrot’s Jason Chronis and Jared Van Fleet into an exuberant closing chorus, warbling out “Everyone is a part of it” into a ragged guitar solo. The song is both self-consciously mocking and lovingly celebratory of the scene - which of course warrants both – opening with a hard bouncing declaration: “Bad haircuts, no prudence, 5 p.m., drunk with the students. You know we’re alright.” The following expose of the “young city” and “kids with naïve symphonies” only testifies to the fact that, like or not, everyone is indeed a part of it.