Happy Hollow

VINYL FORMAT. After more than a year's hiatus, Cursive's reemergence finds the freshly reconstituted quartet as self-assured and assertive as ever. And rather than retread familiar artistic ground for which they've accrued accolades by the vanload, Cursive has unfurled their most adventurous and accomplished work to date, Happy Hollow. Happy Hollow is an expansion of Cursive's trademark discordant swell: dissonant yet distinctively melodic guitar sounds and frontman Kasher's ever-cathartic yowl mesh and clash with horns, piano, accordion and other various instrumentation. Eschewing the stock-in-trade relationship lyrics of recent records for a broader scope, Happy Hollow explores and dissects such themes as shattered American dreams, small-town malaise and religious hypocrisy.