Hop Along from their Tiny Desk Concert
Watch Hop Along’s Tiny Desk Concert, get psyched for their XPNFest set
Philly’s Hop Along got back from a U.S. tour in support of their excellent new LP Painted Shut earlier this month, and on their travels visited the NPR Music offices for a performance at the coveted Tiny Desk Concerts. The band’s set is decidedly mellowed out, given its setting – a hushed rendition of “Horseshoe Crabs” followed by the heartbreaking “Well Dressed” and a brisk take on “Sister Cities” – and NPR’s Lars Gotrich praised the arrangements as much as frontwoman Frances Quinlan’s voice.
That gut-punching howl shatters like a plate on a concrete floor.
Quinlan’s singular voice is the focus, but not what ultimately completes Hop Along, a guitar-based rock band that messes with the soft-loud dynamic in busy and urgent arrangements that cull from their experiences in punk, hard rock and Americana groups. At the NPR Music offices, Hop Along plays songs from its new album Painted Shut, with guitarist Joe Reinhart swapping an electric for an acoustic, giving the band a country-tinged Nashville feel — especially in the punchy, poppy closer, “Sister Cities.”
Check out Hop Along’s performance on the Tiny Desk Concerts below, and catch them this summer at the XPoNential Music Festival; tickets and more information on the festival can be found here. Quinlan also plays a solo set at the second annual OK Fest on July 24th to benefit the Attic Youth Center; more info on that show can be found here.