Hum Inlet 180g 2LP

• DESCRIPTION

Champaign, Illinois band Hum re-issues its four-album catalog on vinyl. The band members oversaw every step of the re-mastering, lacquer cutting, and manufacturing stages while working with original designer Andy Mueller/Ohio Girl in updating the artwork. Each album is offered in a double-LP 180g set in black.

Inlet is the 2020 album from the alt-rock icons. Hum influenced a generation of shoegaze bands, but their singularly epic sound swirls with ripples of punk and prog, too. Outside of a few scattered live shows, those glorious Hum sonics had lain dormant since the 1998 release of Heavenward Is Downward. Their first new album in 22 years won raves from Pitchfork, Stereogum and many others; it's a stunning return to peak form. Includes "Waves," "In the Den," "Desert Rambler," "Cloud Ciry" and more.

Inlet (2020 - Earth Analog Records) was recorded by Matt, Tim Lash, and James Treichler at Earth Analog, Tolono, IL. Mixed by Tim Lash at ELL. Mastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound, Nashville. Offered in black 180g double LP at 33 1/3 rpm. Manufactured at Record Technology, Inc., Camarillo, CA.

On a personal note, we remain grateful and humbled by the ongoing interest in our music from fans old and new. Sincerest thanks for the decades of support and kindness. — Hum

As dark and tonally blistering as anything they did in their early years, Inlet essentially finds Hum picking up where they left off in 1998. Part of what made their brain-pummeling brand of 'loud-quiet-loud' rock so compelling was their knack for packing their guitar-heavy din with gorgeously spiraling melodies and oddball sci-fi lyrics. From the start, Inlet pulls you into the same emotional headspace. Cuts like the opening 'Waves,' 'In the Den,' and 'Step into You' are densely packed with a cosmic array of overdriven guitars and asteroid-pummeling drumbeats against which singer Matt Talbott offers his poignantly flat spaceman vocals. There are also more languid moments here as on the expansive 'Desert Rambler,' which moves from a rocket liftoff chorus to a shimmering midsection in which Talbott sings against sparkling arpeggios like a melancholy poet astronaut gliding through the purple clouds of a geomagnetic storm. It's that kind of wistful, time- and space-bending sensory overload that marked the best of Hum's work in the '90s and which shimmers through all of Inlet.

Inlet is the album that this distinct subgenre needed. Hum were ahead of their time, and it's as if they needed the world to catch up with them before they could release what may turn out to be their masterpiece... as dark as it is bright, as melancholic as it is uplifting, as psychedelic as it is sobering.