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Hobo Rocket

Pond Format: Audio CD
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
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Editorial Reviews

Hobo Rocket is the fifth LP from Perth, Australia based five-piece Pond. Made up of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Cam Avery, Joseph Ryan and Jamie. Terry, the band set out to make a record that captures a portion of rock music's great, decadent history through a personal lens.
Hobo Rocket is brief and dark. It captures the live intensity the band cultivated during their tour across a large swath of the world around the release of 2012's Beard, Wives, Denim.
Pond genuinely love what has come before in rock, but they don't have a problem skewering the genre in all its comically over-the-top glory. This love and perspective comes across in all the songs on Hobo Rocket, which is vital but reverent.
The impetus behind Hobo Rocket, like the rest of their back catalog, is to make music that their teenage selves would listen to, while still creating deeply layered songs that engage with their current interests. The record is, first and foremost, a deliberately fun listen, but it's worth digging deeper to discover a conflicted, sometimes sweetly sad, raucous love letter to a genre with no shortage of awesomely weird moments.

Product details

  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.88 x 5.59 x 0.35 inches; 2.4 ounces
  • Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Modular Interscope
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 27406046
  • Date First Available ‏ : ‎ May 22, 2013
  • Label ‏ : ‎ Modular Interscope
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CUHMGNA
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
26 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

OKC Matt
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great one from Pond!
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2013
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Like many Pond fans, I first heard about this band from being a fan of Tame Impala (lots of the same members in both bands). This album is fantastic!
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nvarsi
5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2017
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Great!
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George H. Follmer
4.0 out of 5 stars Just short of 5
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2013
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Pond is great (TAME can't be beat), but this album is too short.

It's only 6 "real" songs if you think about it - and two were already released as singles. Left a little bit to be desired. I dig the jams of course, but ideally you would take the highlights from Beard, Wives, Denim and Hobo Rocket and create the equivalent of an Innerspeaker/Lonerism.

I don't mean to be overly critical or purposefully lump the two bands together. They just exist this way. Everything all of these Perth guys do in all of these bands turns into Gold.
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John L. Boeger
5.0 out of 5 stars Adventurous gem oF a space rawk record
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2021
I started my POND obsession on this LP. Just a freakin' great space rock record... always a lot of fun. I think of this and the one before it (Beards and wives...) as their primal/raw genius which they have been developing and refining ever since. Listen to this then their latest "9" for example of this continued refinement not to mention advancements in songwriting. I love where they've gone but I still return to this record time and time again. #rawk
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Steve Gee
2.0 out of 5 stars It's ok.
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2015
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It's ok.
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Roger V.
5.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Little Tease
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2013
Though Pond will always be seen as Tame Impala's little brother project, these guys will never fail to impress.
I've watched and read many interviews from these guys and they have all confessed that Hobo Rocket was just something
they put out to keep their fans wanting more!

Though at first I was slightly skeptical about the newer heavy riffs from "Midnight Mass" & "Aloneaflameaflower", these guys
won me over within a few listens.

Pond never seem to disappoint. Don't confuse this LP for an actual full length album. Pond has already announced that
they have a full tour and album on the way for next year!
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John L. Murphy
4.0 out of 5 stars Lennonesque
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2013
I got this as I liked the Portland, Oregon, trio with this name which in the early '90s released three overlooked albums on SubPop. Hoping for a comeback or at least a lost record release, I opened the download link to learn that Hobo Rocket is the fifth CD from this Perth band, founded five years ago and aiming now for an American breakthrough. Sharing ties to fellow Australian psychedelic revivalists Tame Impala, this resembles their neighbors' newest record Lonerism strongly, as three members are in both bands.

Starting off, "What Ever Happened to the Million Head Collide?" will please fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. With a vrooming, whooshing production, it takes off and sustains its progressive rock-meets-garage style with aplomb. "Xan Man" compresses the panoramic view into a smaller sonic space, with Cam Avery's drums bashing away under Nick "Paisley Adams" Allbrook with vocals (also credited for flute, keys, guitar) who offers a dreamy, detached presence. It swings from the loud to soft in passages that distort and wobble even as the song tries to stand tall in the crash.

John Lennon's woozy, morning-after hesitancy returns in "O Dharma" with Allbrook's voice, trackes over Jay "Wesley Goldtouch/Wirey B. Buddah" Watson – guitar, keys, bass & backing vocals; Joseph "Shoseph Orion McJam" Ryan – guitar, bass & backing vocals; and Jamie Terry – keys & bass. It's hard from an MP3 file to make out who's who and what's what, but Pond and label-mates Tame Impala favor a lush, rich ambiance, with acoustic and keyboard-dominant quiet interludes within the more aggressive or trippier passages. Burbling electronics work well to bring out the nuances of this song, and sitar effects end this with an appropriate reference to the East.

Songs take different directions in their four or five minutes. Today's neo-psychedelic explorers appear to bifurcate into jam bands and those raised on indie rock who prefer shorter duration for adventures. "Aloneaflameaflowe" could have been recorded by the Portland predecessor Pond, at least in its stumbling opening, where guitar effects hit turbulence. Then, the voice emerges, and it's back to the early '70s with a thicker mood of processed voice and uncertain foundations of melody. Harder guitars battle out of this until Allbrook's voice whines. As if Robert Plant returns and Led Zeppelin struts. The band, however, lacks one overwhelming guitar presence such as a Jimmy Page, and with three players credited, Pond dives into a tropical, murkier atmosphere rather than a crystalline clarity.

"Giant Tortoise" swims up from the seasick segue. I was waiting for a track similar to Pink Floyd's earlier phase, and this passed through that spacy stage before moving into more overdrive, if less interstellar than Lennonesque. The vocals keep nodding back to a post-Beatles lassitude, and the instrumental energy dissipates into restless directions. Pond, for all the relative brevity of each track, makes Hobo Rocket sound as long as a double-album of old, and its model rests on gatefolds and Hipgnosis icons.

To jolt us from one period of the '70s to another, that makes the mumbled vocals on the title track sound almost as if Mark E. Smith of The Fall staggers into the studio. More spoken than sung, gargled and casual, Perth local character Cowboy John's turn at the mic takes a dramatic detour from the previous vocal turns on this album. Overlapping and raw, as if found-sound dialogue more than a lead lyric, this shuffles Pond's influences closer to a more punk or post-punk experimental snippet.

This closes with even more tape distortion before jumping into "Midnight Mass (At the Mission Street Payphone)"; it starts in Lennonesque tones yet again. This may appeal to those who worship the Smart Beatle, but I found this languid stance wearying, as I have the same touches on Tame Impala's albums. I prefer the more propulsive sections of both bands' dense thicket of a gnarly guitar attack, but Pond won't stay with one groove.

That they do so for more than a minute on the first and final tracks displays them at their best, recalling The Who or Pink Floyd in their more pastoral moments (or counterparts today The Soundtrack Of Our Lives), but this refusal to ape their influences for too long proves an admirable tenacity. Pond manages like TSOOL to freshen trippy classic rock tropes with a calm command of the genre, not for twenty-minute drum solos or stadium-ready riffs, but with a sense of the unexpected. You don't know what will follow in the next minute of any of their songs. That's a recommendation.
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Jack Tripper
4.0 out of 5 stars Pond expertly meld Zeppelin, prog-rock, and mind-bending psychedelia on Hobo Rocket
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2013
Even though Pond have been making their own brand of mind-altering music since 2008, these Aussies are still regarded as "the kid brother" of Tame Impala due to the fact that both groups are from Perth and share two members, with a third who recently quit Tame Impala to devote his full attention to Pond. And while the bands also share a penchant for putting their own spin on '60s psychedelia, Pond feature a much more diverse palette, shifting from '70s prog, to '60s garage, to Zeppelen-esque hard-rock, to T. Rex-style boogie with ease. 'Hobo Rocket,' the band's fifth full-length, may not bring them fully out of the shadow of their big brother, but it does make a strong case for Pond being one of the premier psych-rock bands out there today.

Most of the songs here contain multi-parted, almost prog-like song structures. Opener "Whatever Happened to the Million Head Collide?" begins with a couple minutes of swirling atmospherics, shuffling rhythms, and mystical lyrics before erupting with head-banging, "Kashmir"-like guitar riffs that are both heavy and transportive, with Nick Allbrook perfectly capturing Jimmy Page's patented fuzzed-out guitar tone. The intertwining piano, horn-like sounds, and hallucinatory effects keep it from ever sounding like a mere homage, however. "Xanman" and "Giant Tortoise" follow similar Led Zeppelin-on-hallucinogens-type formulas, and to great effect, the latter perhaps being the best all-out rock song in Pond's five year history, filled with classic rock guitar solo wizardry and flanger effects galore, to the point that it may send you off into a euphoric, hypnotized state even though you can't keep from bobbing your head up and down.

The album switches things up with "O Dharma," a languid, beautiful folk ballad that slowly introduces more and more tripped-out effects and intertwining melodies until the song becomes an entirely different musical experience by the end, much more prog than folk, proving Pond aren't just a one trick pony. Closer "Midnight Mass (At the Market Street Payphone)" begins with two minutes of heavy Sabbath riffs before morphing into an ambient, Floyd-ian soundscape, ending 'Hobo Rocket' much as it began, and providing an excellent coda to this psych-rock gem of an album, an album that proves that Pond aren't just "a Tame Impala side-project," but are their own band, one that's every bit as adventurous. They somehow are able to make the old and dated sound entirely new, and entirely excellent.

(Originally written by me for Earbuddy.net)
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Top reviews from other countries

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Sergio Dominguez
5.0 out of 5 stars Bien
Reviewed in Mexico on January 31, 2019
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Todo muy bien.
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Jordan Rotz
3.0 out of 5 stars Short
Reviewed in Canada on July 22, 2015
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It's cool, but it's short . Not the best Pond album but I listen to it sometimes.
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Emmanuel Robelin
5.0 out of 5 stars Rocket !!
Reviewed in France on May 20, 2015
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Ce disque est riche en énergie psyché et n'a rien à envier à leur cousin Tame Impala, qu'on site à chaque fois car proche et plus exposé. Pourtant, Pond jouit d'une plus grande liberté et se bonifie d'album en album.!
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gregovcov
5.0 out of 5 stars BARGAIN MP3 spare a lady godiva???
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2013
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GREAT STUFF IF YOU LIKE PSYCHE THIS IS FOR YOU.MAY NOT BE AS POLISHED AS MANY U.S. BANDS BUT THE BETTER FOR IT.a mate put me onto them and i need to investigate them further. there must be (unfair) comparison to tame impala: WAY BETTER!...lumeriansVSstooges????VSflaminglips???? worrissit? a fiver? GO ON!!!!
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Deborah Bridge
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 19, 2018
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Superb
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