THE HIDDEN CAMERAS
Awoo
Evil Evil /Arts & Crafts/Rough Trade
· A near hat-trick.
While The Hidden Cameras’ music may not exactly be loud, their initial impact as a queer-rock choir felt like revolution. The debut album, The Smell of Our Own, held equal parts spotless epic pop and hymnals, very nearly equalled by their followup, Mississauga Goddam (a record that caused near-religious experiences when played live).
Awoo arrives following lead Camera Joel Gibb’s move to Germany, the hippest escape point for artists, fags and, in particular, fag artists. Reportedly in love (with an orchestra conductor, no less), Gibb’s scope for the Hidden Cameras has unsurprisingly scaled back, the focus turned ever so slightly towards dance-ability over swelling arrangements. The title track reveals its main trick within the first verse (which is still a great trick, mind), but doesn’t really take it anywhere else past permanent lodge in your memory banks. The frantic "Lollipop" sticks out as not only weak and relatively tuneless, but altogether annoying. The paired ballads "Heaven Turns To" and "Wandering" come off as the underwritten rush-jobs of someone frantic not to miss his connecting flight into Frankfurt.
When Awoo hits its mark, however, Gibb and his cronies are still spot-on. The opening trio of "Death of a Tune," "Awoo," and "She’s Gone" make for a hat- trick pop explosion strong enough to overcome the album’s weaker selections. "Fee Fie" is Gibb’s prettiest ballad about a man cutting his own path – sometimes "do do do do do" says it better than actual words ever could. "Follow These Eyes" and "Heji" would perfectly suit a Euro-spy thriller and the twin climax of "For Fun" and "Hump from Bending" arouse a big true-to-form ending. Driven by a watery beat (what sounds like hands chopping through water), the denouement of "The Waning mOOn" is a dreamy exit worth taking on repeat (not to mention a cheeky typographical visual pun).
Considering how near they’ve come to a brilliant trio of stunningly peerless albums, it’s hard to quibble all too much with Awoo’s occasional lapses. It would have been nice to hear final studio versions of live favourites like "Gay Goth Scene" (as in "We don’t want no gay goth scene in this town") and "Men, Vous etes le meme," but at least we know Gibb’s got some incredible tricks still waiting up his sleeve.
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