| Sounds Like | "Hopewell is a group with grand aspirations for rock music, and for the most part Beautiful Targets realizes all of them and more, with quiet homespun emotion, thrilling bombast, and everything in between, tied together by a playfulness and sense of fun that are entirely genuine."
Josh Madell,
OTHER MUSIC
"The wistfulness of the arching melodies and general conscientious attention to production and songwriting craft will bring to mind British aces in those departments like Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, and (more faintly) Ray Davies."
Richie Unterberger, ALL MUSIC
"The New York quintet offer soaring psych rock as they plug their latest album Beautiful Targets as part of the regular Health & Happiness night. Frontman Jason Russo, who boasts former links with Mercury Rev, layers his undulating vocals over trumpets, crashing cymbals and a riotous blend of keys and guitar resulting in a punky Americana that’ll drive you to the dance floor."
LONDON METRO
"...breathtaking, soulful psychedelic rock with a dark turbulence at its heart: the two elements tugging at each other until a music that is both disquietingly beautiful and emotionally powerful is all that remains." Stevie Chick, NME
"Uplifting, soulful, psychedelic rock. Welcome to Hopewell, the home of beautiful music." Chris Solmon, TIME OUT
"Sublime, stabbing, psychedelia. There are moments of extreme grandiosity, crushing and immense, with billowing crescendos and flattening layers of feedback but they are buffered by a sweet off-kilter romanticism. Hopewell have located the spot where the personal and universal intersect, rendering each moment both introspective and transcendental." April Long, NME
"Hopewell has achieved the feat of retaining the hallmarks of great psychedelic music without any of the meandering – there’s never a wasted second in their dynamic, solid, and intelligent compositions – and that very deliberateness is never at the expense of their soulfulness and poetry." NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN
"When Hopewell add some hangover-hazy honky-tonk grit to their spacey sprawl (The Notbirds, closer Square Peg Teeth), the results are uniquely out of this world." Grade: B+; Timothy Gunatilaka, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"All you need is one catchy song to nail the rock kids and with Calcutta, Hopewell has it. The songs full of dance-inducing stripped down beats, as well as soul-tipped organs and trumpets. Its from the Brooklyn acts sophomore disc, The Birds of Appetite. With mesmerizing singer Jason Russo at the mike, the band culls the glam-rock sound of Bowie and the croon-wave of the Cure." Mary Huhn, NEW YORK POST
"If you are wondering where the soul of Mercury Rev went, it may just have followed former member Jason Russo after his departure from the legendary unit. Their thick and tasty sound may snare a tonal quality with the grungers, but the band reign with a pop majesty that glitters over the feedback. Package all this with a stage presence that gleamed with rocknroll glory and Hopewell arent the heirs, theyre building the kingdom." EXCLAIM! MAGAZINE
"Music this cinematic and brilliant doesnt come along often, so pay attention and enjoy every note of it. Now go close your eyes and go for a flight with The Birds Of Appetite. Youre in for one hell of a ride" TRIPWIRE
"Spearheaded by Jason Russo, Hopewell play that sweet-dream psych-pop, you know the kind that starts off slow and melodic, then gradually builds to something of epic proportions. Makes you wonder how they get from point A to point B so well while maintaining those high soothing vocals. This band rewards those of us who like to pay attention." Mike Ayers: VILLAGE VOICE
"Tripadelic pop mongers Hopewell; their stellar forthcoming, Birds of Appettite, finds the band in top form." VILLAGE VOICE
"Hopewell’s recent recordings with Dave Fridmann sound fresh and dense, with stronger melodies than ever..." TIME OUT NEW YORK
"Hopewell’s psychedelic pop is visceral and dynamic, yet unstable - meaning you never know when the noisy bits will suddenly squirm out of a sugary pop cloud that twists itself inside out, and implodes. A band to keep your earholes tuned to for sure." David Sean Bosler; VILLAGE VOICE
"Breathtaking, dreamy psychedelic rock with a dark turbulence at it’s heart; the two elements tugging at each other until a music that is both disquietingly beautiful and emotionally powerful is all that remains." NME
"Where 2005’s Birds Of Appetite, Hopewell’s last circus of chaotic psychedelia, was all catharsis and therapy, Beautiful Targets is a new day dawning for a band that’s survived personal tumult and self-destructive urges.
Putting aside its dark, troubled past, Hopewell, led by former Mercury Rev keyboardist Jason Russo, unleashes a symphony of radiant, theatrical rock that’s as ambitious and truly awe-inspiring as anything in recent memory.
Always a band that’s swerved dramatically from quiet beauty to epic, monumental glory, Hopewell takes that aesthetic to new heights on Beautiful Targets, a bright, bold celebration of life and all its confounding contradictions.
Leading off with “In Full Bloom,” and its beguiling mix of intricate acoustic guitar picking, surging piano and sweeping strings, Beautiful Targets explodes with the stabbing, kinetic pop energy of “All Angels Road” and “Bethlehem.”
All of it, though, bows to the soaring majesty and wide-eyed wonderment of “Tree,” a bursting heart of sound and crashing emotions that not even the Flaming Lips have mustered yet. Not ready to come back down to earth, Hopewell follows it with the Middle Eastern-tinged, wind-swept anthem “Windy Day (Giant Dancers)” and the dynamic, kaleidoscopic psych-pop of both “Echo And His Brother” and “Afterglow.”
Russo poured out his love for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album in the June 22 issue of Goldmine, and it’s not that big of a stretch to say that Beautiful Targets is approaching that hallowed ground. For once, a modern rock band has made something lasting and eternal." PETER LINDBLAD, GOLDMINE MAGAZINE
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