The fourth album from Chico, California, group Mother Hips finds the band back on its own self-titled imprint, after being dropped by American Recordings on the heels of its excellent but largely unheard Shootout.
“There’s some boys I know who play that rock ‘n’ roll/They’ve slept on a lot of floors to get that California soul,” sings vocalist and primary songwriter Tim Bluhm on “Gold Plated”, the apparently autobiographical opening track. On that song, they truly do have that California soul of which they speak, knocking off a sincere and nostalgic homage to classic 1970s SoCal country-rock.
The Hips have tiptoed along the creaky fence that might find your HORDE followers on one side, your alt-country fans on the other. The degree of twang into the band’s songs has increased over the years: Shootout carried a “less jam, more Gram” vibe, with four-minute vignettes of the old (and new) West backed by the band’s sharpest playing to date.
But everything that made Shootout special, including a diversification in the sound and compelling songcraft, is largely absent this time. Much of what follows “Gold Plated” is rather mediocre material, neither great nor horrible — just a collection of meandering songs that fail to generate any level of emotional attachment. A couple of them are downright dumb; the lyrical inanities of “Payroll Peter” and “The Cosmonaut” are almost too much to sit through. The only other standout, after the opening song, is the closing track, the reflective “October Teen”.