The Human Hearts' 'Faith & Credit' Is a Sharp, Horn-Fed Masterpiece of Grown-Up Pop
Franklin Bruno has been making pop records of unusual literacy since Nothing Painted Blue in the nineties, and Faith & Credit is the sound of that catalogue being extended rather than revisited. Mitch Easter produced it at his Fidelitorium studio, with Pete Galub on guitar, Matt Houser on drums and Brandon Kalber on bass. Thirteen songs on Dromedary, a label operating out of Kingston, New York.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Easter has spent four decades keeping rhythm sections springy rather than heavy, and that is what this material needs — these are songs with a great many words in them, and a thudding bottom would bury every second clause. The band is recorded as a band, with enough air around Houser’s kit that Bruno’s clauses all survive the trip.
The Spatial Dynamics: The horns are the surprise. Rosy Overdrive noted them pushing the band toward Motown and Broadway, and they are mixed high enough to function as a second vocal line rather than a garnish. On “Our Films, Their Films” the same band swings into post-punk angularity instead, and nothing about the transition feels like a costume change.
Standout Performance
Mitch Easter, who has spent four decades knowing exactly how bright a jangle record should be. “Still in Error” opens the album and Rosy Overdrive called it, flatly, “perfect jangle pop” — that is a production call as much as a writing one.
Why It’s Certified
Rosy Overdrive: “a welcome reintroduction to one of the more unique and consistent voices in (loosely speaking) indie pop music.” Bandcamp Daily’s Jim Allen praised the “immediately embraceable hooks” and likened “Guesthouse” to a Raymond Carver story. The title track takes a wry run at finance; “Untimely Beggar” is a near-six-minute ballad at the album’s centre; “Enemies of Song” and “Shovel-Ready” are the ones that stick afterward.