With the departure of Gretta Cohn, the cellist and secret weapon for Cursive's 2003 masterpiece The Ugly Organ, Tim Kasher and company came to quite the crossroads as to which direction to take Cursive next. Should they return to their bleak, early scream-o style sound, or keep mining the challenging music, metaphorical lyrics and concept related albums that have been featured on their last two releases? What Kasher has unleashed with Happy Hollow surprised even myself. Not the fact that they decided on another concept album (this time tackling religion) but that this is their most straight ahead Rock album to date. Oh, did I fail to mention that they hired a horn section as well?

Film critic Adam Mast has compared Happy Hollow as Cursive goes Oingo Boingo, but I have to honestly say that comparison is a tad far fetched. Yes, there are horns here, but to say they take precedence over Kasher and all the voices inside his head that come spilling out of his mouth is simply preposterous.

As stated before, this album is all about religion and Kasher's views with regard to the many aspects therein. "Big Bang" deals with the whole science vs. religion thing and "Bad Sects" finds Kasher somberly confronting his feelings with freedom to choose when religion flat out tells you how to behave and what to feel. When he moans "I know this is wrong, cause were told this is wrong" you can sense an internal struggle there. My personal favorite moment on Happy Hollow however actually deals outside of the religion realm. "Dorothy At Forty" is an interesting metaphor on The Wizard of Oz for people that live their lives in dreamlike complacency. Kasher's call for people to wake the hell up and to get involved in the real world around them is inspiring.

Even though I think there's a lot to like here, most of it actually comes on the A side of the record. The flip side seems to take the same material and drag it out interminably (a bad sign for an album only 45 minutes long); at best it doesn't live up to the explosive first half. And even though I love Tim Kasher as a lyricist, Happy Hollow hits stretches where Kasher's ecclesastic musings are downright cringe-inducing - which is something I couldn't accuse Kasher of on Domestica or The Ugly Organ. If you're going to buy one album this year that indicts religion whole-heartedly, I'll have to endorse the much more catchy new Thermals record. On an interesting side-note, Cursive and The Thermals will be touring together all Autumn/Winter long, so if you're feeling picked on by a higher power lately I highly recommend seeing this show in a town near you because you may just find yourself some new best friends.