Released August 22, 2006 Artist Cursive Label Saddle Creek Producers Tim Kasher, Mike Mogis | Length 45:26 Release date 22 August 2006 Genre Indie rock | |
 | ||
Happy Hollow
(2006) Mama, I'm Swollen
(2009) Similar Domestica, Mama - I'm Swollen, The Ugly Organ, Such Blinding Stars for, The Storms of Early Summer | ||
Cursive dorothy at forty
Happy Hollow is the fifth album by the American indie rock band Cursive. It was released on August 22, 2006 on Saddle Creek Records. Saddle Creek Records began shipping pre-orders on August 8, 2006. The album is named after an affluent neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska.
Contents
The album is the first since the departure of cellist Gretta Cohn whose instrumentation was a fixture of the band's 2003 release The Ugly Organ. The album features significant five-piece horn arrangements courtesy of Nate Walcott.
The lyrics of Happy Hollow form a concept album of sorts, revolving around a small town and its inhabitants, and dealing with concepts such as religious dogma and hypocrisy.
This album came with a download code to download the songs in mp3 format directly from Saddle Creek Records. Pre-orders of the album came with a miniature license plate that had a code to download a bonus track entitled "No News Is Bad News".
Concept
The album revolves around a small, upper class, God-fearing town of the same name (the name Happy Hollow coming from the affluent Omaha, NE neighborhood surrounding Happy Hollow Blvd). Each track in the album tells a different story of faults that the inhabitants of Happy Hollow portray that seem at odds with the town's "perfect" image. The final track, "Hymns for the Heathen," is an afterword of the album, describing the concepts explored in each of the 14 tracks.
The album has many biblical references, reflecting on Kasher's Catholic upbringing.
Songs
1Opening the Hymnal / Babies2:32
2Dorothy at Forty3:02
3Big Bang3:56