The Sidekicks – Happiness Hours

Premiere 90’s alt rock revivalists The Sidekicks redefined themselves in their Epitaph Records debut, Runners In A Nerved World.  They shedded the peppy, pop-punk leanings of their juvenile years, replacing them with insightful, and wistfully grand yet subtly intricate songwriting circa bands like Band of Horses.  Three years later, the band ventures further down the rabbit hole of their evolution with their fourth full length, Happiness Hours.  This time around, the Dayton, Ohio fun punks quietly revisit some of the more scrappy moments of their past, exploring these elements alongside their present mandate of writing the sunniest singles they know how to.

The band’s intent behind Happiness Hours was to craft a series of singles, each serving as a stand alone narrative within the microcosm of each track.  If listening to the album under this lens, the mission is clear. But if you approach the album like I did initially, unaware of that little bit of guiding context, the lyrics might suggest that Happiness Hours is loosely bound by distant post-breakup themes.  Quite a number of tunes find the band revisiting past relationships with the benefit of time.  Very few songs trumpet present fixations, instead looking to the past for inspiration. “It just don’t feel like dancing without you… it’s not like not dancing would make a memory more true,” sings Steve Ciolek on the breezily propelled “Don’t Feel Like Dancing.”  Meanwhile, “Twin’s Twist” references having a “chronic, 00’s high school state of mind,” stuck in a state of “kissing other people, trying not to fall in love,” all the while delivering the message amidst a hazy musical flow that flirts with pop not unlike more conventional Mac Demarco tracks.  “Weed Tent” holds the distinction of being the most vibrant and catchy of the bunch, built upon a quick wit that inquires during the chorus, “how can I be like a martyr, when I don’t even want to die?”

A small number of tracks serve to punctuate Happiness Hours’ sunshine with a little shade.  “A Short Dance” marks the album’s first brief divergence, drifting into forty-eight seconds of melancholy acoustic territory that wouldn’t be out of place on Merge Records’ indie offering.  Title track and album closer “Happiness Hours” is an intimate practice in acoustic retrospective storytelling that looks backwards in an effort to live more fully in the present.  

It doesn’t take much to feel the warmth of the sun’s rays beaming through Happiness Hour.  Enjoying The Sidekicks’ latest effort is a natural outcome of pressing play, and now that we’re past the initial shock of the band’s maturation in Runners In A Nerved World, Happiness Hour is easy to embrace.  This ongoing direction bodes well for The Sidekicks’ future, as creativity and uniqueness are targets the band can’t help but hit.