Hippo Campus performing during the Wasteland EP Tour at the Moody Amphitheater Waterloo Park in Austin, Texas on May 19, 2023, with Jake Luppen, Nathan Stocker, Zach Sutton, Whistler Allen, and DeCarlo Jackson. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)
The storytelling on Hippo Campus’ new EP, Wasteland, is set against a dystopian, painterly backdrop, fragments of humanity lingering at the edges of the end. On the horizon, a tornado-like entity looms – and instead of turning away, we go forward, plunging into the storm of unknown, and remaining somehow hopeful, in spite of it all.
The five songs collected on Wasteland are totems of friendship, hardship, heartbreak, and, ultimately, perseverance. It’s dispatched from an unnamed disaster spread out across the Midwestern plains; the band was heavily inspired by country music, the way that songwriting gets straight to the point, and using that straight-forwardness, imagery, and dark humor as a vehicle for talking about the grief, loss, and love they’ve collectively experienced in the past year.
Since the very beginning, with their debut album, 2017’s Landmark, to 2022’s LP3, Minneapolis’ Hippo Campus — made up of vocalist/guitarists Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker, drummer Whistler Allen, bassist Zach Sutton, and trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson – have tried to make sense of the world around them. They’ve always embraced the ride, the good and bad, trudging through together, and Wasteland is the most honest version of that. Nearly a decade into being a band, Hippo Campus still embraces and is guided by the ethos of shaking it up, sonically or otherwise. Early Hippo Campus records wanted to be cerebral, heady, to use poetic language and obscure their feelings – now, they want to be understood.
Wasteland was recorded with longtime friend and collaborator Caleb Wright (Samia, Miloe, Baby Boys), and is the first batch of new music from Hippo Campus since the release of LP3. The songs were written mainly in Minneapolis, then recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun studios. It marks a new chapter for the band – embracing simplicity and hands-off, pared-back production. LP3 and Good Dog, Bad Dream skewed more experimental and glitchy, maximalist and unpredictable, but here the band wanted to get back to the core of their songs. With this EP, they capture the energy of the five of them playing live in a room. The demos seamlessly flowed into the final product – Hippo Campus wanted the way they felt while recording to be immediately accessible to anyone who listened, so they embraced simplicity.
The EP is adventurous, and runs the gamut of genre, but the hook-laden songwriting and weirdo pop peeks through. “Moonshine” is a post-apocalyptic indie-country love song, written by Luppen and his partner Raffaella; it’s about falling in love with a world on fire, a final Tennessean sunset, deceptively upbeat. “Probably,” a spacious and low-key ballad was recorded in just three takes and is acoustic guitar-forward, while “Kick in the Teeth” feels more psychedelia-imbued. “Honeysuckle,” also known as honeyberry, is a plant that can endure extreme winter conditions – and is the song that directly addresses the hardship of perseverance most directly, a distillation of the idea that canopies across the whole EP.
The sinewy “Yippie Ki Yay” might be the outlier in its energy, in its anthemic encapsulation of loneliness. It’s a sprawling, cinematic track powered by propulsive drumming, high energy and penned as a full-group. Built on a guitar riff that had originally floated around as an idea during their Landmark era but didn’t make the album, the final version today is the sort of song the band would’ve only dreamed of writing at the beginning of their career. Now, all these years later, it’s an exciting encapsulation of Hippo at what they do best – of a band operating at the height of their powers.
Fan reviews:Setlist for the show at the Moody Amphitheater Waterloo Park
Amazing! Forever my favorite band. This was my third time seeing them and I’m already looking forward to the next. Cannot miss seeing this guys if they’re in town.
Loved the show! Beautiful voices, beautiful people, super interactive and funny! Everything you want a show to have.
Hippo Campus put on such an awesome show! Hands down one of the best concerts I have ever been to! (and that says a lot considering I’ve been to a lot of shows and set high standards when it comes to live performances) I also purchased the VIP package and meeting the band was great! I realized they not only make good music, but they’re fun, down-to-earth, and all together made the experience super personable!
Best night of my life! They were fantastic! I cried and laughed and smiled and it was great. I was up against the railing in GA and there was no pushing or pressure on me since I was up front, so a respectful crowd as well. Cant wait to see the guys again!
- South
- Yippie Ki Yay
- Bad Dream Baby
- Ride or Die
- Ashtray
- Sex Tape
- Vines
- Baseball
- Probably
- Monsoon
- Warm Glow
- Moonshine
- Bang Bang
- Way It Goes
- Where To Now?
- Suicide Saturday
- Poems
- Understand
- Bambi
- Boys
- Buttercup
Hippo Campus was the main act at the Moody Amphitheater Waterloo Park with guests Gus Dapperton. They continue across the United States with the last stop at the Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage in New York, New York on June 3, 2023.
Hippo Campus
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Photos by Ralph Arvesen
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