Hurry doesn’t have much of a hook. Main man Matt Scottoline used to play in a rock band called Everyone Everywhere. As a side project / solo exercise, he started recording songs under the name Hurry. Eventually, Hurry blossomed into a real band. It’s a pretty common arc, really…and one that ends up with three dudes playing guitar-driven pop-rock music. Exciting!
That was sarcasm, but the truth is, Hurry’s new album Every Little Thought is packed front to back with breezy, beautiful songs that will thrill anyone who loves the classic, strummy power-pop of Teenage Fanclub, Tommy Keene, the Gin Blossoms and Velvet Crush.
It wasn’t always this way. Every Little Thought is Hurry’s fourth album, and the first two—2012’s self-titled effort and 2014’s Everything/Nothing—were draped in fuzz befitting Scottoline’s acknowledged love of Yo La Tengo. But on 2016’s excellent Guided Meditation, Scottoline gained some confidence, stripped away a lot of that fuzz and brought his natural knack for melody to the forefront.
He continues down that path on Every Little Thought, and rest assured, his songs can handle the spotlight. They share a bunch of great qualities: mostly clean-sounding rhythm guitars, aching vocal melodies featuring lots of extended notes, a persistent sense of melancholy. Hurry’s rhythm section—cousins Joe and Rob DeCarolis on bass and drums, respectively—is prominent and invaluable, providing Scottoline’s songs with a sturdy backbone and some extra momentum.
“Heatwave” sits in the center of the album and captures the band’s sweet ‘n’ sour sound perfectly, “Waiting For You” offers a subtle surf-rock vibe alongside Scottoline’s lyrics about loneliness and screen addiction. “Read Between the Lines” is a tightly wound bundle of jangling guitars and reticence, while “On the Streets” is about as close as Hurry gets to punk rock’s pace. Two slower tracks, “Time and Time Again” and “Separation,” sit next to each other and comprise the album’s only (minor) lull.
But it’s the title (and opening) track that sets the table for Every Little Thought. The song runs more than five minutes in total, and the first two are the song proper, with Scottoline’s falsetto set against slightly distorted acoustic strum. But then, the final three minutes finds the band repeating one refrain over and over and over again. It’s a nifty trick that recalls Teenage Fanclub, specifically the song “Norman 3” on Thirteen.
It’s also a clever deployment of probably Every Little Thought’s very best earworm. Turns out Hurry does have a hook. Lots of ‘em, actually.