Hospital Garden

this debut from Midwestern newcomer, Hospital Garden does a decent job of capturing all of the energy from the trio's live show. At the bar, fuzzed out guitars and shouted vocals tower over the slacker post-rock format...it's definitely worth stopping in and grabbing a beer while taking in a set. Then you can buy a copy to either remember the show, or auction off for hundreds of dollars in ten years time - who knows? - Ghettoblaster Magazine

Hospital Garden has been playing shows around the Gem City for only a year, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it by their sound. The pop-tunes featured on their 2008 self-titled, self-released demo nod to 90s indie rock in a big way. “YPSI” is a pleasant enough exercise in pop-hookiness, until something strange happens in the final moments when its Guided By Voices, by-way-of Superchunk sound veers into darker territory and begins to recall Interpol a bit. Leveraging Perfect From Now On-era Built To Spill, “Piano,” is jangly and thrilling in its rough hewn beauty. “Prayer For Skeptics” offers a vintage Flaming Lips-like panache, and “Slow” pays homage to some of Bob Pollard’s heavier moments of brilliance. There’s nothing sleek or shiny about this six-song effort, but the prickly production here isn’t an Achilles heel, rather it enhances the Midwestern indie rock heart that makes these songs so rewarding. Someone needs to give these guys some cash so they can get into the studio with someone like Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev), cause these newbees might just be capable of producing a record that could go head to head with Keep It Like A Secret or Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. See for yourself at http://www.myspace.com/hospitalgarden Recommended For Fans Of: early Built To Spill, early Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev - youindie.com

Alt- Rock/Post-Punk crossover, interesting perplexed male/female vocal deliveries with some serious strained amplifier noise generated from the Chicago threesome. I had a searching glance at previous words and reviews thrown around the mid-west music press on the Internet exploring Hospital Garden, there are bands mentioned that to be honest, we never heard of. In reviewing terms and glossary, a mass comparison-fail on our part. The particularly effective rhythm seems to spark the trio`s grungy musical consignment, minimal cross-fading and redemptive overdrive, an unintentional 90`s Seattle sound rousing unexpected Placebo soundbites. Already one of this years brilliantly honest releases, a lesson in appropriate feedback usage and clutter free alternative rock. - Mojophenia.com

Chicago – by way of Dayton, Ohio – rockers Hospital Garden pay homage to their early 90’s alternative rock idols on its self-titled debut album.
If it were at all possible for R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe and Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis to procreate, that union would likely result in the birth of a child with the vocal chords of Hospital Garden lead vocalist Lucas Hollow.
One of the many highlights of Hospital Garden is Hollow’s voice. Like his band, which is able to absorb and incorporate the best parts of bands like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr, Hollow’s voice nails the characteristics of those group’s vocalists. Hospital Garden’s best songs are so because Hollow lets loose and gets emotional. When he loses that intensity and slips into a droning monotone, the album suffers from the change in momentum.
The bouncy rock track “Fire Stories,” which opens the album, contains both of Hollow’s vocal characteristics; a low, haunting monotone that builds to a quick yelp. Second track “Look Alive” really jumpstarts the album. Hollow embraces his inner J Mascis yelling and straining to show his emotion while distorted guitar, dominate bass lines (courtesy of Sarah Carey), and thudding drum beats (courtesy of Ian Spencer) swirl throughout the song.
“Red Flagger” is the perfect memorial to heavy, grunge rock. Imagine Michael Stipe singing over a Bleach-era Nirvana track. It provides the perfect lead-in for the Carey-helmed “Banshee.” While it is yet another fast-paced, early 90s alternative rock-influenced song, “Banshee” makes the listener want to get up and thrash about. Whereas Pixies bassist Kim Deal has a bit of girlish cutesiness to her vocals, Hospital Garden bassist Sarah Carey exudes a stronger womanly cool as she questions “You said you want it all, but if you want it all? Why don’t you want me?”
Even though “Banshee” proves Carey is a talented vocalist in her own right, she is relegated to backing vocalist duty for much of the album. Her second biggest vocal track surfacing on the slow, almost folk rock-inspired “Yspi.”
Hospital Garden are obviously students of early 90’s alternative rock and their debut is their well-written and well-researched thesis statement. See you at graduation.
- Loud Loop Press

Chicago's Hospital Garden play mid-tempo pop-rock that relies on big, fuzzy distortion and easygoing hooks for a sound that lies somewhere between arena rock and mid-'90s indie. At the core of the simple but effective songwriting are hot four-chord riffs and nasally vocals that recall Superdrag. This Beat Kitchen show celebrates the release of a new album, which the band previewed with a few tracks on its MySpace page. - AV Club

AvE has been dormant too long. Leave it to this loud Chicago-by-way-of-Dayton trio to wake us up. Remember Hospital Garden? The post-Bear Mountain Picnic solo demo project of Lucas Hollow? Well those sketches are now a full fledged reality and Hospital Garden are three rather than one.


Hospital Garden is a team. An angry, righteous squad of rock n' roll with roots of influence extending down deep into the 1980s when their ears were very young, but not unreceptive. They are blistering guitar, bass and drums led by Lucas Hollow's feverish lyrical mumble, always seeming on the verge of exploding - the tried and true power trio, in lock-step, on a mission to blow up power chords in such effective time-tested methods that it all sounds new again.

They are a streak of pop core wrapped in the unassuming dirty frustration of an era when Reagan anguish had yielded to resigned Reagan fatigue, and something we all should have seen coming around again having just said goodbye to Bush II. Lucas, Sarah & Ian are re-exemplifying the rebellious good that was at the heart of what became labelled "alternative" before all of that rose to the braindead, cashcow top of college radio and Teen Spirit.

But Hospital Garden are not a historical reenactment of the alternative scene. They are diligent students of what has come before, but with a new vision for resistance - resisting the temptation to disintegrate into weirdness, incoherence and fake frame glasses like all your favorite Pitchforkers. Resisting the temptation to be boring and lame. These kids wear real glasses. Use real guitars. A true alternative to that which presently dominates our attention strapped ears and eyeballs.

If Guided By Voices and the Lemonheads were pop music prophets, then Hospital Garden is the new voice in the wilderness and their self titled work is the call to repentance from all your hip nonchalance in 2010. Purchase it at CD Baby or wait for it to show up on iTunes, Amazon, etc. in the coming weeks. - Arts vs. Entertainment

So - in a couple of weeks, Ypsilanti hosts the Totally Awesome Fest - the Spring surged grassroots music mash not that dissimilar from Hamtramck's Blowout, only more tightly compacted into a handful of venues with sardine-packed line ups of dozens of bands.

That said - one Chicago band, Hospital Garden, is worth noting - since they're going to feel quite at home here anyway with one of its members formerly contributing to the Ypsi/Arbor music community through the mid-00's (in Bear Mountain Picnic), while they have, in the last couple years, bounced from Dayton OH to Chicago IL. So, the classic late 90's indie-rock-jangled power trio already has that characteristic Great Lakes pop/rock tinge to it's taste - we Detroiters often seem to have no quarrels with our fresh water/rustbelt satellites, since there's plenty of song scribes up here who share similar admiration for GBV-style lo-fi guitar growled pop and the more sleek and seductively style of Chicago's tightly punching pop - whether it's Office, Sea & Cake or raving over Steve Albini.


Hospital Garden are putting out a new full length - the beautiful and idyllic middle ground melding the hard-driving noise-rock mind of Lee Renaldo to the more capriciously melodious mind(s) of the Elephant 6 collective and pulsed by nicely balanced smooth/burnt guitars; the sound forks, bending up to the spacey shining roar of maybe Built to Spill on some twee-revivalist kick and then also leaning towrads a more Sebadoh-ish sort of acerbic scrawl and tumble. Whoowhee.
- Deep Cutz