Tag: Erik Hassle

Erik Hassle – No Words

Tom: Our regular reader, CB, sends this in with the comment “I am pleasantly surprised”.

Tom: You know what? So was I.

Tim: Me too – I was first introduced to this a few days ago with the line “probably your new favourite song”, but I wasn’t sure because Erik’s more recent work has been, well, not dull, but hardly exciting play-on-repeat stuff. This, though – it’s much closer.

Tom: At least with that introduction: it’s summery, it’s bright, and it sounds like someone actually managed to fuse the 1980s and 2010s somehow.*

*There’s also that quick extra line in the background, just before the end of the track — that’s what made it feel retro, more than anything else.

Tim: True – it brings elements of the funk renaissance that’s happening at the moment, but there’s enough modern bits in there that it’s still very listenable.

Tom: And then the first lyrics hit, and he’s talking about driving past a funeral, and a woman crying. I realise the photo of him attached to that track has a similar emotion on his face, but it rather broke that summery effect.

Tim: Hmm…perhaps, but it does provide an effective way in to the rest of the song – we don’t know how long we’ve got left, so let’s spend all the time we have together, and that fits the mood of the song very well..

Tom: Once that particular bit of mood-whiplash had passed, though: it’s a pretty good chorus. It’s not a floor-filler by any means, but as long as the DJ mixes it in after that weird first line, I reckon it’d fit quite well.

Tim: Agreed, except for the first line bit – a dance floor crowd wouldn’t pay attention to the lyrics, and if anyone does, it’d almost be the musical equivalent of skipping the opening part of Up – the rest would work and be happier for it, but narratively it wouldn’t be as complete.

Erik Hassle – Are You Leaving

Bloody hell, this is a long song.

Tim: Two minutes into this, I got bored. I looked at the time, and thought ‘bloody hell, this is a long song’. But I left it going, because it wasn’t exactly offensive, and then the second time it came round, the chorus suddenly really got me. Yes, it’s pretty much just one lyric repeated a lot, but there’s something about the way it’s sung that really brings out the desperation that’s meant to be there.

Tom: Hell of a chorus – and if he’s really made that video himself, about the town he grew up in, then excellent. I do wish he wasn’t constantly intercutting between two scenes though: it actually started to hurt my eyes after a while.

Tim: Still, four and a half minutes is a very long song.

Tom: While I’m happier than you to entertain songs longer than three and a bit minutes, I agree – it does go on a bit, particularly since the chorus contains uses the words ‘are you leaving’ approximately one million times. Pep it up a bit, Erik.

Tim: Any problems I have with long songs aren’t due to the length – they’re allowed to be long, provided they stay interesting throughout the time they take up.

Erik Hassle – Standing Where You Left Me

There are many things right with this song.

Standing Where You Left Me by erikhassle

Tim: There are many things right with this song – the intensity of it going perfectly with the emotion, the high-pitched electric violiny type thing just before the bridge, the instrumental pauses beneath the first line of the chorus and the ‘oh my God’, to name just a few.

Tom: The drum fills in the middle of the verse, too – and the synth backing line.

Tim: However, I do have one complaint, and that is his treatment of the word ‘me’ at the end of the first line of each chorus. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s very good, but I think he missed a trick there: if he’d lowered it a couple of notes, he’d have then be able to jump up an octave for after the bridge (à la Backstreet Boys), which would have been brilliant.

Tom: Hold on. So you think that…

Tim: He should go down on ‘me’? Yes. Yes I do.

Tom: Get out.

Tim: Now, you may be wondering, ‘Did Tim really come up with a point and go on about it for a whole paragraph, complete with YouTube references, solely to make a fairly lame joke? Well, yes. Problem?

Actually, I do think it’s a slightly valid point, but that aside, however, I think the song’s great. Although don’t go on YouTube looking for a live version – you’ll spend the whole time trying to work out why he’s got a large hamster living on his head.