Around seven years ago, Hank Green and his brother, John (a reputable novelist), sat down on YouTube to reconnect as brothers distanced by their separate lives. Over the time that’s followed, Hank’s released a great number of songs on an acoustic guitar, but nothing quite to the scale of an actual full-length album. Incongruent is the debut into the madness that is the music industry, and it’s bomb-ace fantastic.
As a fan who’s listened to Hank’s quirky and often humorous musical renditions, this record comes as a surprise. Hank Green And The Perfect Strangers culminate to form a group that’s grounded on originality and the album reflects that. The opener, “I F$*%king Love Science,” should give you an idea of what the group is all about: fast-paced, pop punk-esque music.
Many of the lyrics are exactly what you might call founded on great depth, but for what it’s worth, that’s actually pretty OK. “Oh JK Rowling” is a fan-favorite that came out of an acoustic guitar and a question as to what the author was doing now that the Harry Potter series was over, and is a prime example of exactly that. While it and others such as “My T-Shirt And Jeans” are a little obvious, it certainly trumps the immaturity delivered by other ‘90s punk groups and sits well with the college scene and young-adult demographic, and to its core, the messages behind them are often much more important than digging for subtlety.
Putting it all in a single phrase is a difficulty, but if you had to wrap it all up in a kind of summary, I’d say Incongruent is kind of weird, kind of fun, and overall, earnestly, just a great album to take a listen to. In a world oversaturated with “art” and kids trying too hard to be the bands that are already successful, Hank Green And The Perfect Strangers give you genuinely entertaining music.
In A Word: Tremendous
