MADISON, Wis. — A note for those interested: Whatever anti-anxiety medication Hot Hot Heat were prescribed after 2002’s nervous “Make Up the Breakdown” and 2005’s underrated “Elevator” has finally kicked in, just in time for “Happiness Ltd.,” the quartet’s third major-label effort. The album has its high points, but whatever is keeping the band from panicking has quelled the frantic energy and quirky lyricism that made them worth listening to in the first place.
The opening-and title-track, a dour pop anthem that feels borrowed from the Killers, sets the pace for the rest of the album, unabashedly declaring “happiness is limited, but misery has no end,” and continues unsmilingly into “Let Me In,” a song desperately begging a girl to forgive sins past. The song is a whine for acceptance-if not in general then certainly for their new sound-and begs comparison to earlier days when HHH shouted ultimatums (”I’m pulling the alarm/ so get in or get out!”).
The next few tracks, specifically “5 Times Out Of 100,” “Harmonicas and Tambourines” and “Best Friend,” pick up the pace and the slack, channeling some of the frenetic new-wave vigor of past releases and even a bit of the swagger, but this is as close as they come to being half as fun, or as good, as they have been on previous albums, as they refuse to even let their brightest songs go without a melancholy silence.
Beyond that, there’s little cheer to be found. “Outta Heart,” a song that best exemplifies HHH’s sonic shifts, is a downhearted bit of lamentation made interesting thanks to some light orchestration filtering through the guitar, but taken apart by anthemic shouts of cliched statements (”are you worth your weight in gold?”). “Conversation” runs a riff lifted straight out of some Strokes b-side and “Give Up?” sounds similar. Both tracks continue to whine, but whether or not the whimpering is smart or stupid (”Frustration, frustration/ I hate this vacation,” for an example of the latter) it begs the question: How does a band that once haughtily chanted “you are my only girl/ but you’re not my owner, girl” now helplessly cry “you won’t admit what we both know/ you won’t admit I can’t let it go?”
It is downhill from there with “Good Day to Die,” a 1950s-inflected torch song with little more to say than is already detailed in the title, and “So So Cold,” another slice of love-lost nostalgia over some light synth and bright minor chords. The finale piece is more of the same — “Waiting for Nothing” is a mopey anthem splayed across chord-heavy piano and fuzzy guitar that acts as a neat summary for the rest of the album.
The tragedy here is that, disregarding comparison, “Happiness Ltd.” is an admittedly solid, albeit boring, album. Nothing done on here is so far off the map that it’s straight up terrible, but why listen to Hot Hot Heat stumble their way through whining, synth-inflected emo-pop when you can listen to 15 other bands do the same thing better? The album is HHH’s shot at growing up as a band, but all it really amounts to is teenage angst wrapped in drab melodies, eschewing stomp-along dance-pop for halfhearted melodrama. The meds may have kicked in, but no one wants a band too depressed to tell a good time from a bad one. Here’s hoping that next time they meet up they’ve got a new prescription.