Album Review: Graham Hunt - Try Not To Laugh

I had recently turned 16 in the autumn of 1999—and shortly after my birthday, I started working part-time at a drug store in my hometown. I was making probably less than $6 an hour, but to a teenager who had only, up until that point, known an allowance, the checks that I received every Friday with the wages for my three or four days of work the week prior was a lot of money.

Thinking practically, 25 years later, there is a part of me that wishes I would have, perhaps, saved a little bit more, or been a bit wiser with how I spent that money. At 16, I was not thinking practically, about my finances, or about the future. And if I am being open and honest, at the age of 40, I still do wish to be wiser with how I spend my money because what the teenage version of me, and the middle-aged version of me, have in common, is we both buy a lot of music—me, at 16, CDs mostly; me, at 40, LPs. 

And I will admit that a number of the albums that I purchased as a teenager did not age alongside me—this, I think, is not a unique experience for me. There are things that we are attracted to as young people that we eventually outgrow, or we cannot find a way to bring it with us as we age into adulthood. However, there are a handful of albums that I have specific memories of buying in the late summer, and early autumn, of 1999, shortly after I turned 16, that I have managed to either bring along with me, as I have grown, and my tastes have changed; or, I have rediscovered them, and come to have a different appreciation for them at this other point in my life.

It’s funny—for as many things from my early childhood and from my teenage years that I can recall quite vividly still, there are other things that I am unable to remember. One of those things—and it is something that I do come back to, quite a bit, honestly, is the question of how, and where, I heard about new music, and album releases, in a time prior to the internet, or when there was not nearly as many easy to access websites with that information as there are today.

How did I know that, Ken Andrews, the lead singer and multi-instrumentalist from the band Failure, had played a large role in the production of the album August Everywhere, by Jordan Zadorozny’s project, Blinker The Star? 

How did I know that the album had been released in the first part of September of 1999?

How did I know that Andrews also had involvement¹ in the album Breakfast With Girls, from Matt Mahaffey’s idiosyncratic pop project, Self—that album, released just two months prior²?

August Everywhere is an album that I made, even at 16, a deep connection with, and it is an album that I managed to bring with me well into adulthood; an album that I do return to, often in the late summer and early autumn, out of both necessity and nostalgia. Self’s Breakfast With Girls, however, was an album that failed to connect with me at the time—it, and this is a way that had described other albums throughout my life that I was introduced to at, perhaps, the wrong time, or when I was not the right age for them, was something that I just wasn’t ready for then.

And, in describing an album as something that was not ready for, at a certain time, it does leave the door open to come back, and try again, when I am a different age, or when I am at a different point in my life, and musical tastes or development.

In describing an album as something that I was not ready for at a certain time, it does leave the door open to come back, and try again—sometimes it only takes a second attempt.

Other times, it may take more than that. Or, in making these attempts, you may realize that it, despite your best efforts, might just not be something you are able to connect with.

Breakfast For Girls and Self was like that—even after the long-dormant project was resurrected by Mahaffey in 2014 with an EP and a cute video for an infectious song and a 20th-anniversary reissue of the band’s debut, Subliminal Plastic Motives. 

I would try to find ways to connect, but was ultimately unable to make that connection truly last, or find something that would ultimately resonate and that I could bring with me.

And the reason I bring all of this up—how we heard about music in the past and how we hear about it now, about albums that I was maybe not ready for, and what it took for me to be ready to receive them, about Blinker The Star and Self and idiosyncratic pop music, because all of it is what has been swirling around in my head while I sit down with Try Not To Laugh, the recently released fourth full-length album from Graham Hunt.

*

If you, in writing about an artist that is either new, or that I am unfamiliar with, want my attention, comparing them to—even if the comparison is a stretch, or simply just name-dropping and referencing either Nick Drake, or Elliott Smith, or both, literally in the same breath, you’ll have it.

And it is only until later, once I have sat down with the artist in question and their album, and realize that I might disagree with the reference or point of comparison, that I have to make a decision as to how I, ultimately, feel about the music.

Is it something that I can find a point of access into, or is it something that, in my state of minor disappointment, or frustration, inevitably move on from.

I once listened to an album based on a description that more or less called it “Nick Drake meets A Tribe Called Quest,” which sounds practically impossible, like it might be an absolute disaster, or like it would be genuinely interesting if pulled off with tact. The album in question truthfully sounded like neither. The disappointment and frustration and annoyance were deep.

And, perhaps, I spent too much time being critical of the critic, or reviewing the review—something that I do not feel great about, but find myself doing, often as a means of getting into my own thoughts about an album, or an artist. So I am remiss in a sense to be too critical or disagreeable of Lizzie Mano’s coverage of Hunt’s Try Not To Laugh for Stereogum, in December of last year, when the album was released—the site naming it their “album of the week.” Because if I had not clicked on the piece, and began combing through it, and its mention of both Elliott Smith and Nick Drake, among other artists, catching my eyes—I would have not pulled the album up online and started listening, and within a couple of minutes, moved over to Hunt’s label’s website to order a copy of the LP.

What is tricky, though, about Mano’s piece, is that her mention of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith is not actually in reference to Hunt, or Try Not To Laugh, but rather, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, the debut full-length from Damon Gough’s Badly Drawn Boy—released in the year 2000. The piece, then, attempts to draw a comparison of sorts between Gough’s early output as Badly Drawn Boy and Hunt’s growing body of work, as well as some kind of connection from Manchester, England—and the specific “Madchester Sound,” and Hunt’s home in the midwest, Madison, Wisconsin.

And, like, I can hear it. Sure. Maybe it’s because of the simple power of suggestion—do I hear traces of artists like Elliott Smith or Damon Gough echoing through the work of Graham Hunt? Specifically, Try Not To Laugh? I mean, sure. I can. But I feel there is more to work through in terms of Hunt’s inspiration, or influences, than just two names, because across eight songs and a running time of just under a half hour, sonically, there is a lot to work through—Try Not To Laugh is, certainly, an “indie” album, but for an “indie” album, it is dense, and at times, gigantic in its scope, which makes it impressive, and in moments, a little intimidating because of just how many layers there are piled on top of another in a kind of blissful cacophony. 

A kind of dizzying nature, often kaleidoscopic and ramshackle, creating a sound that I think is much more akin, coincidentally and not, to a project like Mahaffery’s Self, or to some of the more whimsical, and less bleak songs from the beloved project from the late Mark Linkous, Sparklehorse. 

“If The Dust Brothers produced an album for Paul Westerberg” is another description given to Hunt’s music in the bio found on his Spotify page—which, in a weird way, might be more accurate in terms of the collision that occurs between pop sensibilities and oddball orchestration and arranging. 

Even with all of these influences, or things that may have, in part, inspired Hunt since he launched his solo career in 2019 with Leaving Silver City, following the dissolving of the garage punk group he fronted in the 2010s, Midnight Reruns, he’s able to take all of these various elements or aesthetics, and effortlessly let them tumble together into something that is a wholly and surprisingly unique and exuberant album to experience. 

It can be, by intention, a restless album, but in its inability to remain still for very long, is compelling enough, and commands your attention enough, that you’ll want to follow along where Hunt leads you.

*

It’s all entertainment to me, baby.

And, in a sense, Try Not To Laugh opens with the song that serves as the aesthetic conceit for the album, and a mission, or thesis statement for what Hunt wants to accomplish with the album, or where he wants to take us—there, right from the rip, is a lot happening within the titular, opening track, and across the album’s eight songs, he more or less manages to sustain that description—“a lot happening”—in almost all of them.

And in sustaining that across all of them, Hunt strikes a fascinating balance on Try Not To Laugh—walking a line, and perhaps ultimately blurring it, for muddying it, between a kind of rough around the edges, underground indie mentality and sound, with the palpable yearning for results that are much larger in scope, and exponentially more bombastic in execution. 

“Try Not To Laugh” is not the album’s most accessible track—the songs on this album, regardless of how idiosyncratic they can become in their details, always have a tight grip on pop sensibilities, but in its placement as the opening track, it does, intentionally I think, set a precedence for what is to come.

Before the song itself even starts, you hear three noises—a brassy, percussive bonging sound, a few stray snare hits, and a weird digital warble. Then, the cleanly strummed electric guitar and Hunt’s rather distinctive singing voice. It’s melodic, yes, but it also has a rough around the edges charm. He’s hitting the notes, at least in the first verse, but there is an intentional kind of dissonance, or feeling of unease, too, as he delivers the vivid opening line—“Scraping up the scraps from the wreckage of your whirlwind.”

And it is, almost immediately, within “Try Not To Laugh” that I can hear a little bit of the comparison to the Dreamworks-era sound of Elliott Smith in terms of the heavy lean into a kind of tumbling, whimsical, enormous pop, albeit “oddball pop” sound—jangly, certainly, thanks to the tambourine that is present once the sharp sounding drum kit comes in, and Beatle-esque adjacent in the way it navigates the give and take of being accessible and “fun” with, in its tone and intention, genuinely interesting and thought-provoking.

With the verses more or less structured around Hunt’s use of a talk/sing kind of delivery, it is within the chorus where “Try Not To Laugh” does explode in a bright burst of noisy technicolor, as even more layers are piled on within the mix—a viola, is the most noticeable, slicing through and adding just a little bit of twang. And in the whirling of the chorus, Hunt, then, delivers with a little bit of strain in his voice like he is really pushing it to make it stretch, and reach to a specific range, and hit the notes he is trying for, howls the sardonic and sneering line, “It’s all entertainment if you want it to be. It’s all entertainment to me, baby.”

*

Even with the pop sensibilities that Hunt opens the album with, and then sustains elsewhere on Try Not To Laugh, there are moments when these songs—still wildly fascinating to hear in terms of their dynamics, and still leaning into an infectious nature, but they take more of a sonically downcast turn, which you can hear near the end on “Seein’ The World,” which, as it opens with more extremely crisp and precise production on the drum kit being absolutely bashed away at, includes the creeping drone of a heavy and dissonant synthesizer tone—which then gives way to even more warbled and fuzzy layers of noise. 

All of that resolves, rather quickly and methodically, slightly after the 30-second mark, and we are left with a quietly strummed acoustic guitar, muffled vocals, the low, warm sounds of an organ, and a gentle rhythm on the drums. This drastic switch—offset by some whimsical accessory percussion—and then the switch back into the layers of noise, did remind me, and perhaps it was because I had him on my mind already when listening to Try Not To Laugh, of Ken Andrews from the group Failure. 

Specifically, his fondness for the quiet/loud/quiet dynamic favored from Failure’s opus Fantastic Planet, as well as the electro-infused alternative rock from his solo project On’s debut, Shifting Skin, from the year 2000. 

Within the last year certainly, when writing about music, and trying to develop an appreciation for other genres, and not necessarily listening with an analytical ear, I have come to understand, that not every song is one that does, in fact, lend itself to a lengthy critical analysis. Not every song includes lyrics that need to be combed over for some kind of larger, more personal, and resonant meaning. Some songs are simply just vibe based—and a lot of the time, songs like that (i.e. pop music) wants to have a good time, and wants you, as a listener to have a good time as well. 

Hunt, and Try Not To Laugh, doesn’t want you to have a bad time, but even with its pop trappings, and rollicking nature, it is not an album that is inherently concerned with a good time either. Not exactly. And there are a few places where it is, based on the emphasis on the aesthetics more than anything else, becomes more about the vibe, or the feeling, than anything else, but he does reconnect with the impressive and catchy bombast of the opening track within the middle portion of the record on the strummy, blisteringly paced “Zoomed Out,” and the album’s first single, and hands down one of its finest moments, the fuzzy, blown out “Emergency Contact.”

And between the aforementioned Stereogum piece on Try Not To Laugh, in connecting Hunt and his residence in Madison, to the Manchester, England sound of another era, as well as an interview from early 2023 on the Substack John’s Music Blog, there discussion within both places on the similarities in Hunt’s music, or at least his aesthetic, and the sound coming out of Manchester and Creation Records in the early 1990s—like the dizzying jubilance of Screamadelica-era Primal Scream, or the Happy Mondays. 

In the interview, conducted well before the release of Try Not To Laugh, Hunt discusses some elements of his production process—specifically a song on his 2022 release, If You Kew Would You Believe It, where he references as a beat sounding “baggy.”

You can hear that—and I am sure an argument can be made for there to be some kind of Venn diagram that tracks the convergence of something jangly with something “baggy” in its sound, or feeling—in jittery, quickly paced “Zoomed Out.”

The song itself begins without warning, and is a little disorienting in the way Hunt’s soft vocals, the strummed acoustic guitar, and a weird, bouncing synthesizer tone all tumble together within the first few seconds. And musically, “Zoomed Out,” like the rest of the album, is restless or at least ever-shifting, as the “baggy” kind of breakbeat comes in shortly before the chorus, providing a kind of unrelenting, skittering feeling as it keeps propelling itself forward.

And even with a distinct musical “vibe,” or feeling, that is conjured between both the momentum of the rhythm, contrasted with the deliberately measured strumming of Hunt’s acoustic guitar, “Zoomed Out” is also one of the songs on Try Not To Laugh where there is some poignancy placed on Hunt’s lyricism—many of which he sings through a kind of palpable sneer and gritted teeth, similar to the wounded ferocity that Elliott Smith could convey at times. “Feeling despair for paying the cost,” he begins. “But I don’t know how much—I don’t know what I lost.”

And within the lyrics, and the way they are delivered, with that sneer and gritted teeth, there is a sardonic, weariness that comes through as well—a kind of slackery feeling that Hunt does really exude from beginning to end on Try Not To Laugh. “And you don’t care about the book—you just wanna finish it,” he exclaims shortly before arriving at what serves as a chorus. “And they think I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not dumb, baby, I’m just zoomed out.”

*

And there are, of course, moments that are much larger than others on Try Not To Laugh—big pop moments that would lend themselves to being released as a “single,” though within the realm of extremely independent “indie music,” the traditional idea of a single, released in advance of the album’s arrival in full, is perhaps not as imperative. 

However, issued four months ahead of the album’s release date, the song, “Emergency Contact,” sequenced third within the album’s spry track list is the one that does objectively lend itself the most to being a “single”—it is simply that enormous in scope, infectious in melody, and lyrically poignant in a way that never runs the risk of detracting from the flickers of catharsis radiate out of the chorus.

Like so much of Try Not To Laugh in terms of an aesthetic, there is a lot going on within “Emergency Contact” and it is rather impressive in how it all collides together quite effortlessly. Opening with a ripple of difficult-to-understand, disembodied samples of conversation, and a wonky keyboard sound, the thing that really lays the foundation for the song is the chugging strum of a kind of downer-rock kind of electric guitar chord progression—all of this then running head first into a steady rhythm and a very dusty, chintzy, glitchy sound effect that bubbles just underneath the surface, with all of it sounding very tightly wound until it does ultimately burst open.

Hunt, in the verses, wanders into the kind of talk/singing delivery that he favors throughout the album, and there is a kind of distorted, fragmented narrative that he is stringing together—the verses themselves do not clip along quite as quickly as they do elsewhere, but you can hear a bit of breathlessness within his voice as he allows the syllables of vivid, dark, and honest lines like, “There’s an old man blasting slow jams at the stop sights as you watch me up o your life since your dog died” to tumble right into place within the rhythm. “Well, Molly’s in heaven with a rope in her mouth—growling and daring god to pull it out.”

Or, even bleaker and sardonic, in the second verse—“Don’t get out of the car until the song is over—trash out the window like it’s 1986 ‘cause you wanna show this neighborhood how the world really is.

And there is, and he does it elsewhere too on the album, a surprising, heartfelt, tenderness and sentimentality within the chorus to “Emergency Contact.” Here, it is rather simple, but in its simplicity, is rather moving. And it is perhaps a little macabre to think about someone close to you—outside of a blood relative, or your spouse or partner, to list when filling out a form that requires you to put an emergency contract—but there is also something about it that demonstrates the kind of unspoken connection you have with someone.

That you trust them that much, or understand that they care enough, and understand you enough, to know what to do.

The way it is described within the song is done with a subtle, thoughtful beauty—a brief though impactful depiction of what it is like to have that kind of bond with someone. “When the song ends—run it back,” Hunt shouts over the explosive, soaring chorus. “You’re my emergency contact.”

“When my whole world is under attack,” he continues. “You’re my emergency contact.”

Hunt is, and it does come as a surprise, given the kind of slackery, abstractly poetic nature of his musings, most sentimental and earnest within the fleetingly short “Options in Community Living 23,” the album’s penultimate track. And if we are continuing with the Elliott Smith comparisons, or parallels, the sincerity and sweetness of “Options” is akin to Smith’s “Say Yes,” from Either/Or in terms of being a love song—albeit one that has a little trepidation built into it and is rough around the edges. 

At all of 90 seconds, there is less of an unrelenting nature, or a breathlessness to “Options in Community Living,” but there is a kind of urgent nature to its sentiments as they continue tumbling out of Hunt, landing exactly where he’d like them to onto of the delicate, resonant strums of the acoustic guitar. And the sweetness, or the affection detailed within the lyrics are one thing, yes, and they do certainly come through upon an initial listen—it was this song, truthfully, and its earnestness, that did convince me to order a copy of Try Not To Laugh on the day of its release after just casually listening to it online after having just been introduced to it, and Hunt, through the coverage on Stereogum.

And the thing, I think, that makes “Options in Community Living” so genuinely interesting is that, even within the sweetness and sentimentality of its lyrics, there is a lot happening with its arranging—yes, it is just the strums of an acoustic guitar, but there are a number of places, within that strumming, there is some dissonance. 

And within those words, tumbling out, in just the right places at the right time, there is a natural, casual rise and fall to his voice, which gives the song a soothing, or at least meditative feeling that is only disrupted by the fact that it comes to an end. 

Hunt is unabashedly sincere right from the beginning—“Do you know every time you smile, it makes my day,” he asks the off-stage object of his admiration in the opening line. “And it’s long, but every hour within me, it stays.” 

“And I’ve been chasing, hesitating to go fast,” he continues before trying to say as many words and syllables out as he can within the next, sprawling line. “And I’m not used to, but it’s nice to, for a change, be chased back.”

And I have, in the past, written extensively, or at least in passing, mentioned, that there is a difference between a “love song,” and a song that is about love, and that within the idea of “love,” there are different kinds, or forms, that it can take, or depict. 

“Options in Community Living” is, by all accounts, a love song, or at least a song that is written with a lot of affection and admiration—and near the end, in final lines, even if it is a song written about someone with whom Hunt was, or is, romantically interested in or involved with, the scope with which he writes opens up a little wider, which provides the song an opportunity to be interpreted as less about a romantic love—becoming something that reflects the kind of affection and admiration and intimacy that two people can have. And, yes, sure, that can be romantic, but that kind of closeness does not have to, and shouldn’t have to be limited.

And there is a delicate kind of beauty, and honesty, in these last four lines of the song—a kind of beauty and honesty that is only really reserved for a kind of intense closeness between two people. “I’ve been so tired for a month straight,” Hunt sings as the song tumbles toward its conclusion. “Hoping that you’ll feel the same way. You do so much to convince me—thank you for not giving up on me.”

*

There is a lot, across the album’s running time of less than a half hour, that does stick with you, and linger, well after the the green vinyl pressing of Try Not To Laugh has ceased spinning on my turntable. The bombast and enormity of its ambition, for starters—funneled into infectious melodies, work their way into your head, and stay there, or the admiration for the production and arranging Hunt uses throughout. Even in songs that I did not connect with as much as others, like the chaotic shouts of “Taste,” I still find myself thinking about them—little flickers that still smolder, for whatever reason. 

The sentimentality and earnestness that is depicted in both “Emergency Contact” and “Options in Community Living 23” are, of course, what really brought me into Hunt, and this album specifically, but what I also have been giving a lot of consideration to, after having spent roughly a month, off and on, with this album, is the idea of “entertainment.”

And, at nearly 4,500 words in, and teetering into what appears to be the conclusion of this piece, you, the reader, as I break the fourth wall, might think that it is, potentially, too late to introduce a new idea, or conceit, into this review. 

There is a part of me that agrees—and yet, something that I have returned to, as I have thought about this album, both when I am listening, and when I am just going about my day, is about what we consider “entertainment”; or, rather, how we prefer to be entertained. 

And I think about this, specifically, because of the lines that Hunt howls within the chorus to the title track—“It’s entertainment if you want it to be. It’s all entertainment, baby, to me.”

And I think about this, with the media we choose to consume and why we choose to consume it—books, films, television shows, music. There is a fine line within all of it—there are things that someone like myself (and this is a fault, and I am working on it) often considers to be high-brow, or intelligent, or difficult, or “artistic,” and in those descriptors, is inherently less about being “entertaining” in the end, and more about proving thought. And there are things that someone like myself would consider to be low brow, or honestly, at times, beneath me in some regards, because it challenges less, or is easier and more accessible. 

In the end, it is more about “entertaining” and much less about provoking thought.

In the end, it is more about entertaining and offering a form of escapism. 

It’s all entertainment if you want it to be.

And there is that line within the media we consume, and why we consume it—pop music, specifically, treads that line very carefully, between being stimulating or engaging and lending itself to some kind of laborious critical analysis, and just wanting to create a vibe, or have fun, and in wanting to have fun, would like it if you, the listener, has fun as well.

It’s all entertainment if you want it to be.

Hunt, as a singer and songwriter, has been walking that line carefully with the albums he has issued under his own name, and with Try Not To Laugh, continues to do so with a kind of meticulous yet relaxed energy—a juxtaposition that is admirable to say the least. And in that juxtaposition, it does create a record that both can welcome with its razor-sharp pop sensibilities, but just idiosyncratic enough to keep you at arm’s length—the kind of record that, if I had perhaps heard it at another time in my life, when I was much younger, or even if I was simply just feeling different (i.e., better) than I am now, it is an album that is wildly engaging in its complexities, but is the kind of thing that I could guarantee you I might not have been ready for, or might have struggled to find a point of entry into.

Try Not To Laugh, regardless of how ready or not you might feel about it, is a blistering cacophony—bright and bold, strange and funny, and ultimately heartfelt, all of it tumbling around, unwilling to ever settle. 

^{1- What I quickly learned is that Ken Andrews is credited as a producer on “Placing The Blame,” the album’s final track, and is also listed an engineer for the sessions. As a 16 year old, I was disappointed that he was not involved more in shaping the sound of the album, which is maybe another reason that, still, 25 years later, it keeps me at a distance.}

^{2- Both albums, coincidentally, were released on Dreamworks Records.} 

Try Not To Laugh is out now on LP via Smoking Room.