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Aug 30, 2011Though Tripper lacks the noisy experimentation of the band's earlier work, it makes up for that in sheer brutality.
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Aug 30, 2011Tripper sounds like Hill and Seim naturally hashed some tunes out--just with some better years of experience behind them to reflect back on.
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MagnetFeb 2, 2012This is the most blistering set the duo have put out in a long time. [No. 81, p. 56]
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Oct 5, 2011Tripper is the cleanest, leanest--and, arguably, most accessible--record Hella have made as a duo, showing off some fantastically tight playing and even a few hints of what their music desperately needs: clarity.
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Aug 30, 2011Hella are a band reinvigorated on Tripper, realizing and embracing with all of their arms (a run through any of the tracks here definitely makes it sounds like they each have more than two) the sounds that absolutely work best for them while showcasing their growth as songwriters and the experiences they've picked up from their myriad side projects.
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Aug 26, 2011And, though, theirs is not the only voice of dissent, they continue to provide an argument against convention. And, it's very convincing.
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Sep 14, 2011Proof positive that Tripper is, fittingly, Hella more focused than its spaced-out title or the duo's hippy slacker personal demeanours might suggest.
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Aug 30, 2011This frantic release gives them a kind of spastic, jagged sound that puts them somewhere between Lightning Bolt and an actual bolt of lightning, and makes Tripper an album that's more likely to wear listeners out physically than mentally.
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Sep 13, 2011There are enough flashes of brilliance on Tripper to make it a great album, but unfortunately enough little moments like that electronic groove on "Kid Life Crisis" to show that there's plenty more for them to reach for.
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Sep 11, 2011It's business as usual: spastic pounding, warp-speed scalar runs, and various math-rock feats of strength.
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Sep 6, 2011The fact that Hella are able to deliver the same thrills, same complexity, and same unopenable exploding package with two members that they do with five is both musically impressive and cognitively relevant to the experience of the music.
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Sep 2, 2011How Hella can have the energy to keep cranking out their spastic, ludicrous-composition noise rock, let alone the brainpower required for memorizing all the parts, is anyone's guess. But sure enough, the duo-just the original two-piece for this one-is at it again.
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Aug 30, 2011If there's one thing that Hella doesn't need to convince anyone after four eclectic studio outings, it's that they can play better than most musicians.
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Aug 29, 2011There's a certain threshold for this kind of demanding material before it gets tiring. It's one that Tripper, staunchly dominated by an old-school style of wanky craftsmanship, crosses pretty quickly.