TV Buddha's 'Hallelujah Anyway' Is a Wildly Overstuffed Masterpiece of Basement Ambition
Hallelujah Anyway is fifteen tracks long and lists among its recording locations Treehouse Stüllo, Captain Conrad’s Quarters, the Hoosier Underground, the DePaul School of Music and somewhere called Hallogallo HQ. This is TV Buddha’s vinyl debut, out on ever/never records, and Bandcamp Daily’s Dusty Henry found the only comparison that fits: “It’s bedroom pop with the ambition of Abbey Road.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Engineered by Kai Slater, Kellen Baker and Johnson Rockstar, mixed by Rockstar alone, mastered by Greg Obis — and that last credit matters, because a record this densely layered falls apart without someone sane at the end of the chain. Bass duties pass around between Rockstar, Slater and Baker depending on the song, which keeps the bottom end changing character track to track.
The Spatial Dynamics: The arrangements are frankly ridiculous in the best way. Rockstar alone plays guitar, bass, Farfisa, harmonium, Mellotron, dulcimer, glockenspiel and percussion. Casey Boyer adds viola, Jasmin Feliciano violin, Louisa Tantillo cello, Will Lovell trumpet, Diondre Dunigan flute. Henry clocked how “sprawling, snotty epics like ‘More Than Yesterday, Less Than Tomorrow’ twist and turn through multiple movements, guitars contorting as if to see just how far they can push their fretboards.”
Standout Performance
Johnson Rockstar, for mixing it. Playing nine instruments is a flex; making nine instruments plus a string trio plus a horn plus a flute cohere into jangle-pop you can hum is the actual feat.
Why It’s Certified
Henry called the record “a bridge between avant-garde weirdness and jangle-pop immediacy” and said the band “turn the nostalgic sounds of yesterday into an exhilarating modern opus.” Paste found it “a sweet and irreverent collection of jangly psych rock and power pop tunes.” Rosy Overdrive, who have been watching this band a while, put it plainly: “it’s time to pay full attention to them.” Fifteen tracks. Pay attention to all of them.