For their sophomore effort, you can’t accuse The Hackles of making the same album twice. The duo is comprised of Kati Claborn and Luke Ydstie, both core members of the band Blind Pilot. In The Hackles, they are put on full display showcasing their highly refined songwriting and awe-inspiring harmonization, the result of countless hours honing their craft in vans, on stages, and at their kitchen table. Their first LP, "The Twilight’s Calling It Quits," was a sparse affair recorded in a living room, mostly live, to an unpredictable reel to reel tape machine. This time, armed with an abundance of ideas, instruments, and help from friends in the rich local music community, they settled into The Rope Room, a brand new studio housed in an old YMCA building in their hometown of Astoria, Oregon.
"A Dobritch Did As A Dobritch Should" contains the same smart, melodic, moving songwriting that made Twilight such a beautiful debut, but this round they brought in drums and fleshed out the songs with Luke’s trademark melodic bass lines, Kati’s textured instrumental hooks, plenty of tape delays and studio shenanigans and a whole slew of gorgeous instrumentation. The album starts with a stunner in Seven Lies which features lush strings reminiscent of 1970’s artists such as Nick Drake and Judee Sill. It’s a haunting song, one that drawsyou in and ensures the needle is there to stay for awhile. The infectious single, "Dominoes", starts with an alluring guitar riff, then descends into harmonized vocals (with Kati & Luke joined by Halli Anderson of River Whyless) that drive the song all the way to the end, never letting up, never letting you go.
As to the title of the record, Al Dobritch was a circus man, running rings from Bulgaria to Las Vegas. His is a story of the collision of will and circumstance, the choices we make and those that are made for us, and is told in the song "The Show Goes On." These themes inhabit the album and the characters within- the lover, the harassed, the undocumented, the lion. Through these characters and their stories, The Hackles process the world around us and how we came to be here. The album is a voyage; a road trip that doesn’t want a destination.
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