The complexity of Hiatus Kaiyote’s blue-eyed soul, which boasts layers of instrumentation and sonic details, only partially masks their rudimentary chord progressions and repetitive song structures. And despite the tonal and sensory aims of the band’s music—they’re clearly going for a kind of rapturous delirium—their lyrics are often silly and too earnest by half. All of this is more apparent than ever on the Australian quartet’s Love Heart Cheat Code.
For one, the arresting polyrhythms of “Telescope,” led by Perrin Moss’s spry drums and Paul Bender’s loping bass, are undermined by the decision to interpolate the Temptations’s iconic “My Girl,” as singer Nai Palm almost laughably wonders, “What can make me feel this way?/Is it kush? Or outer space?/And space is the place.” The song never gets past the vaguest intimations of the cosmic and the broadest of references to altered perception.
Elsewhere, when Palm opines about “the amputees of our divination” on “Dimitri,” it comes off as new-age hogwash. But if its lyrics hang on the surface of things, the song is at least carried by the singer’s stirring, multi-tracked vocalizations, and Moss’s effectively woozy drums.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t nuggets of wisdom to be found throughout Love Heart Cheat Code. On “Make Friends,” which navigates the frustrations and mysteries of adult friendships, the band echoes Palm’s desperation—“I want you to recognize me”—through cascading riffs and deliciously liquid bass. The song builds to an emotional catharsis that’s sorely lacking in more self-explanatory tracks like “Everything Is Beautiful” and “How to Meet Yourself.”
The album’s brevity—it clocks in at just over half an hour—and the inclusion of an interlude featuring a character from Adventure Time and a playful tribute to a beloved feline titled “Longcat” are signs that Hiatus Kaiyote don’t take themselves too seriously. And we shouldn’t either. But, dotted as it is with obvious references to The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, the self-indulgent Love Heart Cheat Code can’t help but register as Psychedelia for Dummies.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
This might just be one of the worst critical takes of Hiatus Kaiyote I have ever read. You give the album a 2.5/5. Why? You can’t get past the lyrics. In your own words, they “don’t take themselves too seriously”. It is VERY clear that Nai Palm is not writing these lyrics with any real intent or purpose, no different than any of their other albums. An idea that appears to be entirely foreign to you, but is paramount for understanding Hiatus Kaiyote, or any contemporary music group for that matter, is that lyrics don’t matter. If you could possibly manage to consider the wild idea that musical expression can exist independently of lyrics, you would find four musicians making some of the most richly produced and well crafted music currently being released. Is Love Heart Cheat Code their best album? No, in fact it might be their worst. But the worst of Hiatus Kaiyote is still incredibly nuanced, rich, and precise, something that you appear to be totally blind to. When I read your review of this album, I cringe the same way that I do when non-jazz musicians tell me “A Love Supreme” or “The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady” aren’t good albums because they “don’t sound good”. You clearly have no deeper understanding of music or artistic expression through sound and it shows badly in this review. My suggestion is to stay FAR away from music that requires some basic understanding of the craft in order to appreciate it. Otherwise, you might write terrible articles such as this one that will hurt your journalistic integrity.