Hippo Campus – Flood

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Over the course of music history there have been several cases of a band not being happy with the material they are creating, and then in turn deciding to scrap that material in favor of a different direction. This exact situation happened to Hippo Campus. The band were sitting in the green room of a sold-out amphitheater show at the start of the Summer of 2023 when they realized their fourth LP simply wasn’t good enough. This realization led to them re-thinking their approach to what would be the sessions for Flood, their latest studio effort that comes pouring through the speakers with the most polished, professional, and ultimately most complete version of the band to date. Hippo Campus had reportedly penned over 100 songs during the five-year span between LP3 and Flood, with only the best material making the cut for the 13-track fourth studio album. What we’re left with is a completely realized vision for the band’s music that shimmers as much as it makes their audience think about what they’ve listened to. Flood is an appropriate title in that it took a complete brainstorm of ideas all at once to see what stuck and the aftermath is a brilliant collection of songs that play off of each other in a cohesive work of art.

The album kicks off with the mid-tempo “Prayer Man” that features some great guitar work from Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker, while drummer Whistler Allen finds just the right emphasis behind the kit to allow for the song to breathe. Luppen’s crisp vocal performance hits a new gear on the chorus of, “I need a prayer man, anything’s fine / Something to hold me, cut like a knife / Out of the darkness, into the light / I need a prayer man to keep me alive.” The contrast between the lyrics is incredibly well thought out, and you can tell the band spent time making sure just the right tone was struck here. “Paranoid” follows the great opening statement with a pick-me-up beat set by Allen, while Luppen gets into a comfortable groove in his vocals to make for a key Hippo Campus-sounding instant classic.

The sprawling “Fences” plays out much like the material the band crafted on their last EP, Wasteland, but the finished product just feels stronger on Flood. The country-tinged track is as heartfelt as it is well-constructed, with no excess added and no part of the song wasted. The ballad of “Everything at Once” features some of the best guitar-playing of Stocker’s career to date, while Luppen adds in the second verse, “Ripping up sunflowers in the garden / Making room for plants that don’t need water / Playing god again, why couldn’t I save a dear friend / From going out in a hurricane of lightning?” as he comes to terms with losing a close friend of his that inspired the song. The conflict in his voice/lyrics are authentic to his approach to songwriting, and still feels very much in the vein of Hippo Campus.

The title track features some great-sounding guitar tones that should be heard in a good set of headphones to truly grasp everything going on, while Luppen closes out the song with the thoughts of, “Do I even believe what I’m talking about? / Do you even believe what I’m talking about? / I just wanna believe what I’m talking about.” The playful pondering through the well- crafted lyrics makes it easy to root for the band’s journey that they take us on with Flood.

”Corduroy” is a largely acoustic guitar driven song that somberly hops along as Luppen remains as captivating as he’s ever been in his vocal performance, while the piano-laced “Slipping Away” feels refreshing in its delivery as Luppen effortlessly goes from a falsetto to his standard croon in the verses. “Brand New” ended up being one of my favorites in the set with its pulsating bass line, steady beat, and an overall delivery that sounds like it would belong on a Strokes record. The track is pure indie rock bliss, and the band matures right before our eyes in real time.

”Tooth Fairy” is a manic collection of thoughts that play off of each other well, as Luppen recalls, “Lost my teeth in a dream that I had / White dental floss in the palm of my hand / Got a new pair of shoes and a fear of the dead / Too slow let’s go, get me out of my head.” The song is memorable and it gets just the right ideas across before it wraps up. “Madman” feels very much at home to the core of what Hippo Campus have been about in their career to this point; solid, grooving guitars that shimmer off of the speakers to allow the right template for Luppen to share his vocals.

The closing trio of the epic “Forget It,” paired with “Closer” and “I Got Time” is basically Hippo Campus on steroids. It encapsulates everything that they have done well to date in their career, and just ups the ante in a way that makes the journey with the band that much more rewarding. The band kicks into a gear that I didn’t know that they had in them, but I’m glad they found it at just the right moment in time with Flood.

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