Hidden In Plain View have been a band that I have followed for over a year now since seeing them open the Drive-Thru Records UK Invasion Tour just over a year ago and blowing the headliners Home Grown and Allister off the stage with an amazing performance. So that night I bought their EP and it was an enjoyable CD with a couple of songs of real quality (‘Belly Full of Kerosene’ and ‘Twenty Below’) but there was nothing really amazing or out of ordinary about the EP as a whole. However this album was still one of the albums I was most looking forward to getting my hands on in 2005 and I can truly say that HIPV have really taken it up a notch with Life In Dreaming.
It starts off with ‘Bleed for You’ which I first heard last summer when the original version was knocking about on Purevolume and some other sites. The album version is slightly different from the first version which was available for free download and I have to say that I actually prefer the original version. The album version is still an excellent song but it seems to have lost some of the edge that made the original version so amazing. The second song ‘Ashes Ashes’ soon gets me over this initial disappointment though as it literally gets me up on my feet and throwing my body around the room while singing along with an excellent display of Emo/Post-Hardcore at its best. Another favourite of mine is ‘The Point’ which is the first example of HIPV doing a slower song and it’s a really good one, Joe Reo’s vocals sound amazing when singing lines like “I’m dying cause your leaving, hopes abandoned and my heart still beating”, a truly Emo line if ever there was one. There is also a new version of the song ‘Twenty Below’ which was originally on the EP but has been updated and the results are better this time around and they have made an already great song even better.
Another example of HIPV at their best is ‘Garden Statement’ which is an amazing song with a great melody and again the vocals are the real highlight especially at the end during the songs breaks down, which is simply beautiful. ‘American Classic’ is a more poppy song but still amazing and could easily do well if realised as a single with the essential sing-along parts and a great guitar riff. Very similar in vein is ‘Top 5 Addictions’ which again I think will become one of the most popular songs from this album due to its obvious and immediate appeal.
The mass amount of melodies this band have to offer is amazing and you can’t help but be reminded of bands like Taking Back Sunday or Finch, if you’ve ever heard a HIPV song before and liked it, I would definitely recommend getting this album. Hidden In Plain View aren’t the best band in their genre at the moment but after hearing this album I don’t think it will be too long until they are catching up with the leading pack.
  
To find out more about Hidden In Plain View - Click Here |
