2012.07.08 Aloha - Some Echoes

Color: Black

Release Date: 2006, April 11

Label: Polyvinyl Records

Initially this is the record where Aloha lost me. And as a result, I kind of forgot about them for a while. This just seemed to lack the immediacy of everything that they had put out before. In 2007, the band released their amazing Light Works EP, with the promise of a new full length to follow shortly. “Shortly” became 3 years, but when the release of what would become Home Acres was finally announced, I decided to spend a good amount of time with Aloha’s entire back catalog. Even this record. Time was kind to it… but it still remains my least favorite release by the band. It’s true in the visual sense, too. Nothing about it’s design does anything for me. BUT I did discover a new favorite Aloha song in its midst. “Weekend” hit me at a very transitional point in my life. The end of a very hard relationship was finally behind me and a new one was possibly beginning to blossom. So the themes found in this song were very relevant and it was hard to deny the hook of the chorus. It’s not a very “in your face” kind of hook… no, it’s more of that “you’ll be humming it even though you’re not even totally sure where it came from” kind of thing. The moral of this story is that it pays to give things a second chance or at least some time. In this case, four years.