The Hippos

About The Hippos

The Hippos is the third and final album by the Los Angeles, California rock band The Hippos, released in 2003 by Olympic Records and Fanscape Music. It was released posthumously after their breakup in 2002. The material for the album had been recorded in 2000 after the departure of original drummer Kyle Briggs, but even while working on it the other band members had begun to drift into other musical projects and eventually the album was shelved and the group disbanded. However, due to numerous requests from fans in the years immediately following the material was resurrected and released independently, mostly at the behest of lead singer Ariel Rechtshaid. It was promoted as "the album they wanted their fans to hear" and its cover art includes the message "Suonava tra: Marzo del 1996 e Settembre del 2000. Grazie per tutto. Fine," which from Italian loosely translates to "Created music from March 1996 to September 2000. Thanks for everything. The end." Musically the album completed the band's transition from third wave ska and ska-punk to power pop, marking a departure from the Southern California ska scene from which they had spawned. It relies heavily on the use of synthesizers and keyboards as opposed to the horn-driven arrangements of their early releases. To illustrate this the album's cover shows several analog synthesizers including the Korg VC-10 Vocoder and ARP 2600 Semi-modular Synthesizer. more »