Reaching for the Sky Pt.2
The story continues:
As the boy grew to a man
He built tall ladders to ascend
And those around him said with spite
Risk of failure isn't worth the fight.
[Full lyrics on Hansonstage]
The song picks up from where Part 1 left off and tells us more about the boy, who is now striving against difficulties and fighting against all odds.
This Time Around
The general consensus is that the vocals were re-recorded for TTA - possibly due to the publishing rights still being owned by Def Jam. Isaac, in particular, sounds very much as ‘current’ Isaac as he belts out his verse.
But vocals aside, I keep forgetting that there’s an orchestra playing - it’s very subtle in the intro and my brain just tunes out all the new stuff and fixates on the familiar: i.e. a track I’ve listened to a million times. As the orchestra kicks in properly halfway through, so does the horns section, and it sounds like everything was thrown in indiscriminately, favouring noise over subtlety. All that is missing is a chorus line and pyrotechnics.
Something Going Round
This revisiting of a fan favourite from The Walk album is introduced by some seriously dramatic sounding strings which set the tone for the rest of the song. Although the vocals are clearly from the existing recording, SGR is one of the few tracks in the album that sounds different enough for my mind not to instantly default to the original version.
Battle Cry
Ahhh, Battle Cry….where to start? Thanks to my self-imposed String Theory embargo, I didn’t know anything about this song, so I went in with an unbiased mind, noticing, before anything else, that the guitar intro is totally ‘old school’ U2 - think Unforgettable Fire-era U2. Then the singing starts and…. what's going on? I can usually tell what brother is singing but this time the similarities between the two younger Hanson's voices is uncanny and for the first time in years I got Zac and Taylor mixed up, at least right up until around 0:33 In my defence, I think that’s also because in recent years, Zac seems to be favouring singing in a high key and falsetto over his deep, rich natural singing timbre - which he uses in this song.
At around the point at which Zac starts to sound like Zac, Battle Cry really starts to sound like something familiar, until the the chorus erupts and it all becomes clear: this is golden era, first-three-albums-era Killers, complete with Brandon Flowers-style histrionics, rousing chorus, insistent drums and sweeping strings. Possibly because of its distinctive retro sound, this song was love at first play for me - until I found out that it’s not a new song at all. It turns out that Battle Cry is a product Fools Banquet 2010, and was co-written by Zac and Carrick Moore Gerety, and later published by Carrick’s then band, Everybody Else.
I can’t pretend not to be at least a little disappointed that the best song in the album is not new material. Of course, that doesn't diminish the quality of the song itself, but I was all set for proclaiming to the world ‘See? See? Hanson can still write great songs’ - until I found out that it had been written 8 years ago, way before Anthem, the band’s last proper studio album, was released.
However, Battle Cry suits the orchestral treatment so well that it could almost pass as having been written specifically for this project. And Zac’s voice is a return to form: clean, powerful, free of all the ironic nods and winks of glam rock/Darkness influence of recent years. Especially when it comes to Hanson, earnestness always wins over knowing irony.
(If you fancy checking out the original - here it is. Carrick’s voice can’t compete with Zac Hanson’s but it’s a pretty good version nonetheless).
You Can’t Stop Us
An intro precedes the opening guitar of this Anthem-era track, followed by string arrangements that underscore the drums throughout the rest of the song. It just doesn’t work: the orchestra treatment really doesn’t suit this We Will Rock You homage - maybe it’s the annoying horns at 1:08, or the string intermission before the bridge at 1:49, which doesn’t add anything but succeeds in diluting the kickass vibe of the song.
Broken Angel
I had such high hopes for this song, which I never cared much for until Hanson started to perform it regularly in 2015 and suddenly, with Zac’s adult voice, it took a whole new dimension. And that’s where the problem lies for me, because, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, Hanson have kept the old vocals from Underneath, which would have been recorded when Zac was about 18. Of course he had a good voice back then - for an 18 year old boy. Now he’s a grown man and his voice has so much more depth and richness and arguably the strongest pair of lungs of the three. So why did Zac not re-record the vocals?
Vocals aside, the orchestra doesn’t really seem to add much to the song - I expected more for a song that maybe most of all should have encapsulated the spirit of String Theory - the boy flying too high to reach for the sky.
Ultimately, Broken Angel is a missed opportunity of criminally huge proportions, and every time I listen to it I feel a wave of frustration for what it could have been and isn’t. And sadly, it sums up my feelings on the whole album, but for that you’ll have to wait for the conclusion - I’ll see you at the finale.
What Are We Fighting For
This little known song, from the 2015 Inside the Box Members EP, is an interesting inclusion to the album, but considering the theme, I can see how it fits. While I’d found the arrangements on the original version disappointing compared to the raw, ‘in progress’ demo from the ‘making of’ stream, I think the orchestral treatment actually improves this version. It’s one of those ‘good to hear as part of something else’ types of songs; it doesn’t really go anywhere, it doesn’t strike any particular chords but at the same time, it’s part of the journey - like the sound of the windscreen wipers on a long car ride on a rainy day.
Breaktown
You know when I said that ‘Broken Angel’ was a missed opportunity of criminally huge proportions? Actually, I was lying. That award goes to “Breaktown” - a song fans have been begging Hanson to release in an official version for years. We were treated to an incredibly live performance of it at BTTI 2017, and it was stunning. But once again, just like with Broken Angel, Hanson have recycled the old vocals from the demo that was part of the audio CD that came with the SETB documentary. It’s a crying shame, and one more reason to see this project in its live form.
[The clip below shows how Taylor sings it these days. Video credit to Emily Fuller].
No Rest For The Weary
One of the best songs from Loud, NRFTW has always stood out for Taylor’s great vocals and singalong chorus. But there is nothing in this version that particularly stands out to me, and the added orchestral sections feel tacked-on, replicating the existing tune without adding anything spectacularly different.
I Was Born
I like the first part of this version of the 2017 single a lot - until the chorus starts: then, whatever the orchestra is doing is actually weirdly grating. I wish I had a sufficient command of musical terminology to articulate what the orchestration of the chorus sounds to me - but in a nutshell, it sounds to me as if a deranged monkey with cymbals is going TA-DA! every few seconds. Know what I mean?
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| TA-DA!!! |
Sound of Light
My least favourite song from the Sound of Light EP doesn’t sound radically different in this version and I am barely noticing the orchestra. I can't find anything else to say other than the EP version is far superior.
Tonight
The elusive ‘Tonight’ - one of Hanson’s most emblematic songs of recent times, and yet one that they hardly ever perform, thus belonging to the category of ‘Hanson Mysteries’. Much like the song that precedes it, the orchestra doesn’t add much to this new version - just a little bit of background strings here and there. Have I already used the phrase ‘missed opportunity’ at all in this review?
The Verdict
As I am finally getting round to posting this second part of my review, String Theory is already been out for three months and my impression is that it has left a lot of fans underwhelmed.
The problems start with the so called ‘storyline’: a boy striving for more, getting knocked down, finding himself on the brink of despair and finally rising again. It’s an uplifting story, for sure, but one that we have heard before in the Strong Enough to Break documentary and that is a big theme in Underneath. Although Hanson will not admit that the story is autobiographical, it clearly is, and leads to the question, how many times can they get away with recycling this ‘Hanson against all odds’ narrative?
But if I could get past the predictable concept, what has been harder to swallow is the re-hashing of old vocals, which, in the case of Broken Angel and Breaktown actually misrepresent the band. To a casual listener, Zac sounds like a teenager, and Taylor like an angst-ridden 20-something with a nose cold. Why could Hanson not re-record those songs? How difficult would it be to organise it, especially as Hanson own their own studio?
Finally, the orchestra. I listen to classical music and although I am certainly no expert in the subject, to me a lot of the orchestral arrangements in this album sound very obvious, as if someone had just played around with the main tune and added instruments with Garage Band. Maybe David Campbell had used up all his better ideas on his last project?
Adding to the overall sense of disappointment was learning that the orchestral parts weren’t recorded live, ‘off the floor’, when a local orchestra would have been the obvious choice. The only possible explanations for this are cost and time, and I can’t help coming to the conclusion that cost and time have been determining factors in how the entire project eventually turned out. String Theory could have been terrific, but instead of going all the way and doing it properly, with new vocals and a more creative treatment of the songs, Hanson chose to make a sort of musical Frankenstein, tacking new onto old and hoping for the best.
Hence, as an album, String Theory is rather underwhelming: it should be reaching for the sky, but instead it stops halfway up the ladder and has a cup of tea.
I wanted to really love this album but all I can say is that it’s okay. Luckily, I will soon get a chance to see the live version on stage and I have no doubt that it will be an amazing experience, with the band performing alongside a real orchestra, bringing the songs to life with their adult voices - the way it should have been. Roll on, February.
String Theory is available from Hanson.net as well as all the main digital stores and streaming outlets. All details of the forthcoming European shows and tickets information also on Hanson.net
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