Once More With Feeling (CD)

Kids in a candy store, having put together their first home basement studio with bonafide real professional recording equipment, HCE wrote and recorded their first album to be released on a compact disc.

While its unadulterated wackiness might seem a little self-indulgent, this album has serious strengths: The manic opener of “Holier Than Thou,” a satirical piece about any kind of hypocritical moral authority in which Michael gets to do his best impression of an evangelical preacher; “Ba Ba,” a song that takes its title from the monosyllabic background vocal but delves more clearly than “Blue Refrigerator” could about the importance of self discovery and authenticity; “The Love Thing,” you know, about the love thing; other more serious and issue driven pieces; and a lot of really fine performances by so many good friends of the band: this set features some of HCE’s best tunes to date. Overall, its variety, its manic qualities and its more reflective quiet moments, the instrumental experimentation (horns! acoustic guitars! improvisations! fake jazz!) make the whole thing feel like a gigantic big-ass party.