The Mother Hips - 'Shootout'

What can I say? I'm excited to finally have the last piece to the puzzle of the Hips' discography finally in my grasp. I've been able to get all of their other albums either in the store, or via download, but this one has eluded me for years. I did have all of their collection once when the Ruckus music program was still online and let me tell you, when the site went under, my Mother Hips collection was sorely missed. This was four years ago, but I finally ordered it used from a vendor on Amazon.

This is the sound. As said perfectly on 'Honeydew', where they can really just let their trade off jam solo's and smooth vocals really take hold. I'm probably a bit jaded knowing that the live version is much more satisfying due to the four times I've seen them live.

For the most part the album feels new to me, since I did not really get a chance to absorb it all when it was available to me before. Aside from a few like 'Honeydew' that I recognize as being more common live, the album is filled with plenty of new Hips songs for me to digest and enjoy.

This is the album that led to their release from American records due to it not being the commercial success they had expected (as far as I understand), and while I understand that in 1994 this may have not been the sound to sell the numbers needed for economic success. However, for me I believe artistically and melodically, the record is quite satisfying and successful in these regards.

'Mother Hips' is an amazingly melodic and well put together piece that should only be able to mellow you out with clever lyrics and smooth guitar and some fun soloing near the end. Usually its a bit difficult, I think, to perform a song named after the band in question, but they succeed in making it not sounding trite in trying to define them. Similar to the way that Wilco started their most recent self-titled album, with their self-titled song. They both work in a way I wouldn't have expected.

Coming at this from more of the perspective of someone that is already very sold on the Hips and all that they do, this review is probably more of just my comparing it to other albums of theirs and enjoying it rightly so.

Soundwise, it seems to fit pretty rightly between 'Part-timer Goes Full's higher production value and the alt-country melodious 'Later Days'. 'Single Spoon' is a perfect example of more of their sound to come in their next album, while the follow up, 'So Much', would have sounded more in line with the material from 'Part-timer Goes Full'.

Basically the album is meeting and surpassing all of my expectations for it, in it being the last Hips album to round out my collection. I'm going to enjoy it being nestled in between 'Part-timer' and 'Later Days' when I do my chronological listen through on their albums every few weeks or so. Their sound is just something between the Beach Boys, Neil Young, and the Eagles to name a few, yet none of those comparisons feel satisfying or give these guys enough credit. They are their own, doing what they've been doing, better and better for 20 years and I look forward to the successor of 'Pacific Dust' and seeing them up here when they're in Portland.

Mother Hips - 'Shootout' -> 4.3/5