MRS. HIPPIE - "LOTUS" (METAL BLADE)

 

The name of a band usually brings along a few associations. I don't know exactly which associations Mrs. Hippie conjured up in my mind, but certainly not "groovy metal with freaky drumming, melodic vocals and a firm stoner rock ingredient".

As far as the press release seems to indicate, Mrs. Hippie was more or less formed on a whim, a recording made somewhere in 1996, and then remixed/overdubbed in order to make it good enough to be released on CD.

Labelled as a side project of Hammerfall vocalist Joacim Cans, Mrs. Hippie in fact seems to be the spiritual child of one Christian (later of Awesome Machine) and one Mika (later of Hardcore Superstar and Brassmonkeys). The addition of Cans may have been the thing Metal Blade wanted to release the product at all - at any rate, the amalgamate of Joacim's melodic voice and the extremely groovy rock/metal laid down by Christian is a thoroughly enjoyable one. This is music you can't really sit still to, though I guess it's too stoner-rock-ish for true metal fans and too much classic metal vocals for stoner rock aficionadoes. A risky mixture, but a good one, even if Cans' voice doesn't quite seem up to the challenge in some songs, wavering unsteadfastly through "Mother Nature Bleeds" and the first half of "Lost my Way". A song like "Someone Else There" alone deserves more serious marketing efforts than Metal Blade seems to be willing to give, and the album closer ("I Want You") is probably one of the finest Kiss covers I've ever heard.

RK

 

Written April 2000

 

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