“It’s getting hard to resist stifling a yawn every time a band dumbs down the Joy Division sound for the Interpol generation. But when it’s done well, or extremely well in the case of Seattle’s Hotels, it’s a little easier to forgive a lack of originality. The key to the success of When Hearts Go Broke is in its sense of urgency. A dark heart pulsates throughout, and the driving, robotic rhythm section never beats down the eerie atmosphere created. From the cascading drums pounding at the start of ‘Hydra’, it’s all go, go, go. Within the tightly wound compositions are some magical touches, which create shifts in the weather at all the right moments. Space-age synths swell through the instrumental breaks within the dark disco of ‘Leilani’. The moody ‘Port Of Saints’ is defined by its angular guitars which bleed into each other in a fiery climax. The pick of the bunch is ‘Kite Fight’, which kicks off with a glam slam of handclaps, undulating bass and buzzing retro synths, and then peaks with a gorgeous xylophone outro. When the album does slow down, the change in pace is brilliantly timed. The early-4AD wash of ‘Near The Desert, Near The City’ is an ambient stop-gap among the heady rush of the exceptional first half of the album, while ‘The Heart That Hears Like A Bat’ is a seedy, lunge track, in the style of Broadcast. Scratching a little deeper, the lyrics are slightly hit and miss, either too self-consciously dark or too mundane to match the drama of the music. Still, this is a minor glitch in what is otherwise a head-turning second album from this Seattle-based group.
A little bit too serious, a little bit pretentious, but also a little bit awesome.”
