Hidden In Plain View, Life in Dreaming

Tracks & Durations

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Review

There are a thousand ways for the world to cut you up and cut you off. On their Drive-Thru Records debut full-length CD Life in Dreaming, Hidden in Plain View explores a few of them. A brutal rape in a back alley. A car wreck on the turnpike. Standing alone on a high rooftop and contemplating the fast way down. Unafraid to confront such dark impulses, the hard-rocking New Jersey quintet ultimately makes an eloquent hard-rocking case for the human spirit.

Produced by Jim Wirt (Incubus, Something Corporate) and mixed by Josh Wilbur, Life In Dreaming rips the head off of most rock & roll conventions. A good example is "Bleed For You," a searing account of a date rape. Sings lead vocalist Joe Reo: "The cold concrete cuts against her back/and her spirit spills with blood onto the pavement/hands tied so tight behind her neck/and a silence falls and everything changes." Notes lead guitarist/lyricist Rob Freeman, "Two friends of mine were rape victims, and seeing how much pain they were in I wanted to relieve them. It's one of the rawest things I ever wrote and when I played it for one of them, she had tears in her eyes, and she said 'You nailed it.'"

"Ashes, Ashes" is a crushing rocker that shines light on what the band calls moral suicide. "It's about being true to yourself," says Rob, "and not taking things for granted." The neo-symphonic seven-minute-long "Garden Statement" traces the anguished reflections of a soul on fire. "They broke you down and now you're broken/And it's sadder than the saddest movie/I ever saw but without the beauty/So I stopped watching I stopped caring," sings Joe Reo.

Other songs, like "Twenty Below" and "A Minor Detail," keep up the pressure. Says Joe of the band's songwriting process, "When we get together, we sit in a circle with our amps plugged in and we share ideas. If we like an idea we jam on it." Adds Rob: "We write the songs together. The best stuff always comes from what you're feeling."

The track "In Memory" carries that notion further. "Rob's grandfather had passed away," says Joe, "and a friend of mine was dying from cancer. So we were looking at it from the same point of view, which gave the song more emotion." Songs like "Halcyon Daze," with its string flourishes, show a more intimate side, while "Top 5 Addictions" and "American Classic" showcase HIPV's ability to blend power with melody. Says Rob, "'American Classic' is about growing up and the friends you grow apart from. You go to college, life takes over. Things aren't as sincere as when you're young."

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