Hi, everyone. Stuffthony Nosetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new The Hellp album, Riviera.

Here we have the latest LP from Los Angeles-based duo The Hellp, consisting of Noah Dillon as well as Chandler Lucy, who started life originally as a trio back in 2015, and this is now their third album. In 2023, they signed to an Atlantic Records imprint, which they are still on. They dropped their 2024 record, LL, through that label. It's a project that built a lot of buzz for the band at the time and also featured some coproduction from 2hollis. As the group was on the come up, they were getting pitted in this lane of indie sleaze revivalism, which is a label the band personally rejects.

On a side note, Noah Dillon has also shot the imagery, from what I understand, for Rosalía's album, as well as having directed the music video for 2hollis' "flash", so we are talking about a band of multi-talents here. While The Hellp does have a strong and dedicated fan base that most definitely reminded me this album came out, top-level fame up until this point has eluded them.

However, they are definitely trying to, at least from what I can see, pack some serious hit potential into this album. This album, from what I understand, has also been described as an escape of sorts based on its title and is supposed to be a true representation of what The Hellp is as they see their last album as a bit of a mixtape that wasn't fully representative of them and their abilities.

Digging into this album, I can see both why it has been picking up some buzz and steam and also why it has been garnering a lot of Y2K era indie comparisons. For one, at points, there are vocal leads, anthemic hooks, and raw rock riffs and drums that do remind me of some underground groups at the time that have since ascended to classic status. Whether we are talking about the amateurish charm and cartoonishly grim vibes of The Unicorns or the slick, groovy nonchalance of Death from Above 1979.

You can hear these sorts of vibes pretty immediately on the opening track, which I am impressed that they were able to recapture this energy so accurately, even if the song itself is one of the more forgettable on the record.

But what The Hellp is doing here on this project isn't just some bit of indie rock purist revivalism. I mean, obviously, pulling inspiration from groups as disparate as DFA and Unicorns is wild enough. But The Hellp also grabs a ton of inspiration from prevailing indietronic and blog house titans from this time period, with scuzzy, loud, electro-flaved production that just screams Crystal Castles, a little The Knife, as well as just a touch of Jimmy Tamborello's beats for any given Postal Service song. Plus, we also hear what I would say are bedroom-spun echoes of top-tier acts such as Daft Punk and Justice.

Now, to someone who grew up around these acts and vibes coming up, making the cultural impacts that they did, The Hellp's revisions of their ideas do come off maybe a bit too derivative at points, especially in a time when you do have have quite a few newer acts that seem to be returning to similar sounds, be it The Dare or Frost Children or Snow Strippers.

But honestly, that matters very little when the helps songwriting is passionate, smart, and on point, whether that is on "Country Road", which I absolutely love. The chill beats and cerebral lead vocals on this track are great. There are also standout lyrics on this track, too. Like, "I want to be a pine tree because they never know change." The keys that pop up on the pre-chorus are fantastic, and the hook itself is so smooth. [It] also contains these interesting nods to John Denver, obviously.

And following this, we also have another highlight to my ears – that's "Pray to Evil", which for me, has maybe the most hit potential just purely as a song on the entire record. I say that because who the hell knows what random 20 seconds of audio are popping off on TikTok at any given moment. But anyway, I love the acoustic guitar samples and chunky beats that kick this track off. Some of the talk/sung vocals bring some serious Beck influence, and the chorus on this one is so sticky. It's such a memorable little line, and I love the layering of different vocal leads and lines that sing in a round against the chorus. There's something epic and snappy and dramatic about it, too, like a classic MGMT hit.

Following this song, though, in my opinion, the tracklist does kind of lose steam. Some deep cuts sound like weekly mixed imitations of ideas that are copied and pasted from The Hellps very clear indietronic inspos, whether you're talking about "New Wave America"'s layers of pumping beats, quiet vocals, and ringing synths that sound like a bunch of mush, or "Doppler", where pretty much every sound feels demo quality. Or even the closing track, which for all of its endless beats and repetitions of the word "forever," fails to muster up a recognizable or memorable hook, Which leads me to bring up the fact that there are a lot of moments on this record where the songwriting itself leaves a lot to be desired.

Because honestly, I can look past some mid production or scuffed mixing if the song itself shines through or is good enough. But at a lot of moments, it's just not. Like with the hype "Modern Man", which I do like the propulsive energy coming off of this instrumental with its octave synth sequences, its tempo too. But these lyrics could not have possibly been written. They sound so weirdly off the cuff, especially with the singing and the basic rhymes and pointless observations, too.

There's never a point where this track clarifies what exactly it's trying to describe. "This is a modern man / with his modern plans / taking his last stand / This is where I stand / just where I thought I'd land, and / this is a modern man, taking who I am / with a little sprinkle of desire." Then it randomly launches into the next verse with no warning.

Yeah, I mean, as decent as the start of this track is, the baseline groove of it and everything, the entire work itself feels like homework that you swore to your teacher, you finished last night at home, but you actually scribbled the rest of it out in the bathroom.

So yeah, on this track, we have an incomplete idea that we are trying to stretch out and do something that sounds finished. But the song "Meridian" has the opposite issue where it's got a lot of different ideas and it's not really sure which one of them it wants to do. From a single piano note that fails to really drum up much of any momentum or drama at the start of the cut, to these unflattering and strained lead vocals that eventually build up to this totally random, noisy, ridiculous drop and beat switch that doesn't go with anything that happened previously in the song at all.

Like the progression and overall vision of this track, in my opinion, is a complete mess. I can feel on some level it's trying to be sentimental, like a Plain White T's hit, something like that, but it just doesn't really have the focus to make it happen.

Unfortunately, while I did find there to be a handful of decent highlights on this record and for sure some potential, very rarely did I feel like The Hellp were truly following through on this record, either because the production quality and mixing and clarity of sounds and textures in the instrumentals on this one don't really feel like that much of an improvement from what the group had been doing up until this point.

The difference between this and LL, quality-wise is not really that night and day. But also on top of it, again, like some okay or underwhelming or bedroom-spun production is something that in some cases can be great or very easily looked passed if the songs themselves are fantastic.

I feel like much of the time, The Hellp wasn't really meeting that standard of, sure, fantastic songs, but a lot of the time, I wouldn't even say we're even getting truly good songs out of this record. Some of the vibes and performances and the overall energy and aesthetic that The Hellp is able to conjure on Riviera, I do think that goes a long way. But that alone is very much not saving this record that, overall, quality-wise, I think is very middle of the road, which is why I'm feeling, I think, about a light 5 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, The Hellp, Forever.