Hearts Of Palm UK

For Life (Hypnote)

By Rebecca Shore
Published: October 25th, 2008 | 9:00am

These days artists are less likely to confine themselves to a traditional musical genre. Why bother when you can take a more specialized route: create your own, better-fitting category. “Femtronipop” is how Erica Elektra of L.A. act Hearts Of Palm UK describes the girly, synthy cuts off of her band’s debut album, For Life.

The electronic backup is carefully arranged so as not to disrupt Elektra’s pretty vocals. The resulting sound is something like a female Postal Service with elements that are cute, unfussy, almost European (which makes sense given the Swedish mastering done by Henrik Jonsson, whose resume includes Peter, Bjorn & John and Camera Obscura). The lyrics are sincere and address things like love, overwhelming emotion, and the uncertainty of growing up.

In “Portugal” Elektra references the in-limbo experience of mid-20s existence, “25 and it make me feel weird / Because my life is so unclear / What if I were to drop everything?” "Goodbye” deals with the hardest kind of breakup: the congenial kind — "Part of me feels like / It’s all a big mistake / Because we’re so good together / There’s so much love inside" — but pain can only be detected in the lyrics; the ethereal layers of music and electronic drumbeats are almost cheery. The melodic tracks throughout For Life rarely offer anything but positivity — Elektra told performermag.com that it’s as though the heavy emotions are “wrapped up in cotton candy. Like a happy melancholy.” The final track, “More Than This,” is a whisper quiet cover of Roxy Music's popular song, and might as well be a Hearts Of Palm original, given its themes of airy uncertainty.

There’s no need for an artist to conform to a genre if there isn’t a preexisting category true to their sound. And for a band that’s a little bit of cheeky girlishness, a little bit of electronic swagger, and a little bit of sunny pop, femtronipop suits their lovely sound just fine.

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