“Perfectionism” – Hotel Mira
Indie Pop
The hardest task for any artist is leaving a good first impression. If the first time someone hears your music doesn’t blow them away, it can be nearly impossible to get them to give you another chance down the road. As a result of the sheer amount of bands out there and the ease of streaming, it is time saving to make immediate decisions about who you do and don’t like and move on. Hotel Mira was one of the bands that ended up on the wrong side of this dichotomy for me the first time I heard them. I didn’t have anything against there music, it just didn’t land for me so I completely cast them aside. It took one of my favorite songs of 2019 in order for me to come back and give them another chance with the new album on the horizon.
Despite how much I enjoyed “This Could be It for Me,” my expectations for the album were far from high, in part because the follow up single, “Speaking Off the Record,” was far less impactful. I expected a fairly average indie pop album with two or three good songs that would be worth adding to my library and forgetting about going forward. What I actually heard was one of the most consistently strong and coherent works of indie pop in recent years with five or six true standout tracks. In other words, instead of an average release, the aptly named Perfectionism was a model for the genre to follow.
The best reason I can give for why I appreciate this album is the difference in opinion on “Speaking Off the Record” as a single versus as part of the grander picture. As a single it confirmed my bias against the band by appearing as merely acceptable and not catching my attention. Where the previous single had been bouncy and exciting, this song was a much more somber and deliberate showing and this difference was striking for the role of building interest in the upcoming record. Now that Perfectionism is out in full, though, “Speaking Off the Record” is a standout track for being a fantastic change of pace at the midway point. Being noticeably different from the tracks around it inspires the listener to key in on what makes it unique rather than overlook it entirely. This is the essence of the album—it inspires me to take another look and fully appreciate what I had previously missed.
There are no shortage of quality tracks on this album, but there are a few that definitely stand a head above the rest. While I think that “This Could Be It For Me” is undoubtedly in the upper echelon of indie pop songs that have been released in the past 5 years, I think that the best song on Perfectionism is the first lead single, “Jungle.” It has a wonderful mix of grit, drive, and passion that can be heard from the first riff through every note of the simply brilliant chorus. There are other songs that do certain things better, but this track is the one that synthesizes the various ideas on the album into one perfect package that displays the best of Hotel Mira.
I will admit that I find a lot of the lyricism on this album to be lacking and occasionally just bad (“wife me up”), but it generally lands more in the realm of camp instead of painful. Honestly, a lot of these songs benefit from the campy lyrics as they make them feel authentically fun rather than manufactured. It also allows for some of the stronger lyrics to shine through much better and carry a greater weight, a frequent theme for this album. Hotel Mira have crafted a wonderful listening experience full of strong individual moments that come together to form an even stronger total listening experience. Overall, Perfectionism is an album that took a band I had no interest in and made them one that I look forward to hearing more from in the future.
Koda Music 