Review: The Hat Party – “Agents and Thieves”

Here’s the headline, boss: Madison, WI band cuts debut, mimics Archers of Loaf. Well, that’s at least part of the story. Much of this quartet’s 10-song freshman outing feels like lost Archer outtakes circa All The Nations Airports and even the exceptions to that rule sound familiar: the angular Rodan-isms of “Paramedic,” the way “Overexposure” or “Icicles” sound vaguely like Zykos. The record’s pretty good and the songwriting’s far from uninventive but you may feel like you’ve heard some of it before. – Punk Planet May/June 2006