In the time since
Hellogoodbye's 2013 album, Everything Is Debatable, it appears that the band's driving force,
Forrest Kline, did a deep dive into two musical forms the band hadn't shown any inclinations toward playing in the past. The results are displayed on 2018's
S'Only Natural, a scattered but ultimately enjoyable record. The first style
Kline ingested is disco, the wonderfully cheesy kind with sweeping strings, bubbling basslines, and smooth-as-silk vocals. Almost half of the record is made up of tracks like the gently funky "You've Got an Expensive Heart" and the wonderfully slick title track. Bassist Brian Robert Jones gives all ten fingers a workout, the strings swoop and sting, and
Kline croons words of love beatifically. It's a sound other people have done -- many of them -- but
Kline's guileless nature and the sheer hookiness of the songs put them across and make them sound fresh somehow. The other unexpected style is modern radio pop, specifically the slow, sad nocturnal R&B ballads done by
Drake or
the Weeknd. Sparse synths, gentle drums, and enveloping harmonies surround
Kline's pleading vocals on a handful of tracks, and while they aren't as much fun as the disco tracks, it's difficult to deny that
Kline hasn't mastered the form. "Close" could be taken from a
Weeknd album; "Anytime, Anyform" has all the mopey melancholy of
Drake at his
Drake-iest. If these stylistic shifts weren't enough,
Kline also throws in "Mysterious You," a fingerpicked folk ballad that sounds like a poor relation to
One Direction's "Story of My Life"; the waltzing trad pop "Stare into the Black, which sounds like a kid playing at being
Frank Sinatra for a night; and as the odd cherry on top of a weird album, "Honeymoon Forever," a cinematic ballad with strings and trumpet solos suggesting that
Kline may have seen
La La Land a time or two. It makes for a head-scratching listening experience, mostly positive but just plain odd at times. He definitely nails the disco tracks and comes close on the R&B, and the rest is pleasant and confusing.
Hellogoodbye have a reputation for changing up their sound, and
S'Only Natural does nothing to change that. ~ Tim Sendra