Well, roll again…
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[5.12]
David Turner: The wordy, nice twee band from across the street! And their name is Hospitality! Perfect. Their self-titled debut was a solid tour of sadness in the guise of smiles. “I Miss Your Bones” hits the same mark until makes a full stop a third of the way to reveal an extended instrumental section. This section is strong, but Hospitality works best with the tension between the dour lyrics and overly perky guitars. And if a choice had to be made between the two, never choose guitar.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The workaday voice complements the lyric qualities of the guitar lines. Nothing you haven’t heard before and will possibly play again.
[6]
Anthony Easton: For a song by a band named Hospitality, the bland guitar work and a silly sentence repeated endlessly are not very welcoming.
[2]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The lyric “I get what I miss” slowly turns from tight pronunciation to mush, from mash notes to séances; the music follows close behind, rumbling and unfurling. It’s an impressively unhinged depiction of unwinding inhibitions, performed with flickering, understated cool.
[7]
Crystal Leww: Amber Papini is a hero on the guitar, which is why it’s painful to say that her guitar solo at the end just goes on a tad too long. “I Miss Your Bones” is most compelling in the parts where she is repeating words to the point of ad nauseam. Papini’s voice goes and goes, and her backup vocals (provided here by some very clever production) echo the words until they matter even less. This is anxiety to the point of claustrophobia to the point of nothingness.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: I loved Hospitality’s debut album from 2012 — it struck a balance between breezy guitar pop and coming-of-age confessional, Amber Papini managing to make songs about liberal arts and saying goodbye to one’s twenties funny and catchy. “I Miss Your Bones” puts too much stock into Hospitality’s technical muscle — guitar solos and various other instrumental wonkery — while shuffling away from the lyrical side of things. Hope this isn’t what maturity looks like.
[4]
Brad Shoup: It’s been a banner year for this kind of synecdoche. But the phrase, repeated, is a weak linking device, especially given Hospitality’s skillful grim advance. Amber Papini and crew create a formidable queue of contrasting sections with nary any bloat. (If they don’t stop on a dime, it’s a silver dollar at worst.) Even the closing solo points up negative space; I imagine it’s a live killer at three times the length.
[7]
Josh Langhoff: Oh, this drumming! So dry and scrapy, it makes me feel anxious for them. It may be the most plodding thing that’s ever made me anxious. (No wait, there was that one time my parents sang “In Bloom” along with Rock Band.) You can tell Hospitality is working so hard! That opening riff obviously took weeks to master. It’s still gonna be iffy on tour, and pretty soon the audience will figure out the band is reaching for “creative” metaphors because they have nothing to say. Media reports of turbulence, freakiness, psychedelia, or even sadness in this music are also reaching.
[2]