Hey Geronimo – Crashing into the Sun Review

By Rhys Prka

Hey Geronimo are an Australian five piece band from Brisbane and  their debut album is ‘Crashing Into The Sun’, an interesting endeavour that shows a lot of promise.

The band has been around for a while, dropping two EPs since 2012, but they have been quiet for a few years and it shows in the music as a few of the tracks are from different parts of their career and it can sometimes be quite jarring as they change styles. The song ‘Carbon Affair’ is from 2012 and is on this album and the song ‘Lazer Gun Show’ is from 2013. For fans, I can only imagine this is disappointing. When you are hearing old songs on a debut album it must be saddening because, instead of some new material, you get to hear the same song you have been listening to for the past 3 years. This project seems dotted with these older tracks and they stand out.

It seems that Hey Geronimo couldn’t decide on a direction to take the band. Sometimes they go the pop direction like on ‘The Girl Who Likes Me’, and then a rock direction on ‘Boredom’. I don’t understand what they want me to take from this. Perhaps that they can play different genres? Don’t get me wrong, they are perfectly capable of writing good songs in every genre they touch. I personally would have enjoyed the album more if they stayed in one direction; it seems that over the years they have lost direction and an overall sound. For some however this might keep the album fresh and interesting.

These guys know how to write songs however and the album has obviously been taking care of very nicely. The production and mixing is perfect, all the instruments layer correctly and nothing sounds too jarring and it really helps when listening to the album when you get that clean crisp sound. 

Another thing that helps is that the band has multiple singers. It took me a while to pick out their unique voices but the album became a lot more interesting and enjoyable when I did. This obviously keeps the album fresh and more enjoyable as you are able to hear multiple voices all over the tracks. They are quite talented songwriters as well. The hooks are catchy and pretty infectious, the guitars are explosive when they need to be, and the drums add a certain richness to every song. The songs also seem to have a retro 60’s, ‘beachy’ tone, evident on the album cover. It feels like this album should be played on the beach during a hot summer’s day.

Overall, this album shows a lot of promise and definitely has a lot of catchy tracks on it. I just hope that their next project has a more unified sound.

FAVOURITE TRACKS: Boredom, Final

RATING: 6.5/10

RELEASE DATE: July 1st