By Brian Jurilla
By Brian Jurilla
The full-length debut from the New Jersey quintet, Hidden In Plain View, brings its listeners a pleasant surprise.Hidden In Plain View’s album, “Life In Dreaming” (Drive-Thru), shows how fast the band has matured since its self-titled EP. “Life In Dreaming” moves the band to a more melodic direction, giving it a more lasting affect on its album. The album is still full of energetic guitar riffs. Also featured is a new version of the closing track from the band’s self-titled EP, “Twenty Below.” The song is given a cleaner sound than it had on the band’s EP; this cleaner sound can be heard throughout the album when compared to its EP.The opening track, “Bleed for You,” starts the album on the right foot. The track gives the listener a hard-hitting guitar riff and a chorus that is catchy. The band still retains the scremo genera element that brought it out to the forefront of punk rock and has it being matched up with bands like Taking Back Sunday. Vocalist Joe Reo has a huge, syrupy voice that soars and cracks on lines; guitarist Rob Freeman, who handles the screaming punctuations on the album, still blends its furious and gentle sides confidently. “The Innocent Ones” ends with a long instrumental giving the album more length, but is still enjoyable to listen to. Fellow record label mate Andrew McMahon (Something Corporate) makes a guest appearance by playing piano on the closing track “Halcyon Daze.”Each track on this album sounds different than the previous one. That is exactly what the band was going for. The tracks chosen were to sound nothing like the rest, which gives the album variety and enables the listener something different to listen to. The lyrics ring true to real life dilemmas such as date rape, a car wreck, broken hearts and last goodbyes. The music is real, passionate, harsh and beautiful. HIPV really got to the core of its soul with this one and created an absolutely incredible CD.HIPV has improved, but it also has stayed the same enough so that it is comforting and refreshing for an HIPV fan to hear its new CD, rather than be disappointed by a whole new sound. The CD also pushes the band to maintain quality in its work so it could outlast bands like Good Charlotte. Watch out for this band in 2005. HIPV will be a band that you will see more of on magazine covers and you will hear just as often about as its contemporaries. You can catch HIPV this summer on the first half of the Van’s Warped Tour, but before you go out to catch the live show, pick this album up. It will be well worth the purchase and will be in your CD player for months to come.
