The Importance of Cursive’s “Happy Hollow” Almost 20 Years Later

I don’t remember when I actually found Cursive. All I know is that I had a copy of their debut album Such Blinding Stars For Starving Eyes. I probably picked it up because that was around the time I found out about Mineral and other bands on Crank! Records. I played Cursive’s debut a lot, especially the first two songs “After the Movies” and “Downhill Racers.” It sounded so much like Mineral, both in its instrumentation and lyrical content, that I gravitated towards it.

However, I didn’t really keep up with Cursive again until the release of their fourth album, The Ugly Organ, in 2003. That album, which is a full-blown concept album focusing on the Ugly Organist’s maneuverings through love, life, and loss. The narrative and presentation grabbed me, but what really sucked me in was the musical composition, which consists of the typical rock instruments but also a cello, organ, trombone, vibraphone, and other things one would not necessarily think about in a “rock” album from that period. Add to this the grandiose, discordant soundscapes, coupled with the lulling moments, and I was hooked.

While I really love The Ugly Organist, partly because it reminds me of cool fall days, Cursive’s fifth album Happy Hollow, which came out in 2006, hit me like a ton of bricks. Like its predecessor, Happy Hollow is a concept…