Among Giants' "Truth Hurts" turns 10
Back in 2012, on the old site, I decorated "Truth hurts" as my personal favorite album of the year. A decade later, I most definitely can stand to that. Eventhough I don't know if I would decide like this again, I gotta admit that I'm still listening to this record and I guess, that's the definition of "classic", eh?
AMONG GIANTS started out as the solo acoustic project of Greg Hughes and then later turned into a full band, with Greg still being the heart of the band with his distinctive singing and his personal lyrics. In a time were Folk-tinged Punk-music wasn't as trendy as nowadays he took this route and designed it in a more Emo-/Pop-Punk-kind of way. It felt totally fresh to me and it still does 10 years later. The songs are acoustic or half-acoustic at times, yet they rock like hell. Greg plays the acoustic guitar like he's fighting for his life, while bursting out some of the most emotional vocals like, ever? The themes revolve around his life, and especially the time where he became an adult. I was 26 when this record was released and I remember the lyrics felt kind of youth-ish to me. They definitely are. But it's not like Greg is singing about one broken relationship after another and that he'd be the better choice for his ex than her new lover. Despite being 19-something when writing these lyrics, they go deep and are sincere, urgent, relevant and poetic at times. He sings about his cracked family house, his fucked-up, directionless friends and his own perspectives in life, at times more self-critical, at other times full of self-confidence. I still love those lyrics at 36 years, especially Greg's tongue-in-cheek-style and the likeable self-portrait he paints over the course of these 12 songs. Also, there are so many awesome and powerful lines on this. Hell, I can sing along every word of the first 6 songs ! It's just so fun to sing along to those lyrics and the songs just don't get old!
That being said, the record is front-loaded as fuck. The first 6 to 7 tracks grew to timeless classics for me and they're one of my favourite string-of-songs ever. The second half of the record pales in comparions, but only cause the first half is as amazing. There's very good material near the end, like the scream-y, freaked out "Albert Rhymestein" or the beautiful ballad "East Orlando".
When Greg moved to Seattle, Washington he buried AMONG GIANTS and founded a similar act with BOBBY'S OAR. A band that kind of grew from a solo-thing to a full band, while Greg maintained the brain of it all. Recently Greg moved again, which meant the end for BOBBY'S OAR but check out their back-catalogue if you're into his work at AMONG GIANTS, it's good stuff.
...at the end, I'd really love to get a bit nostalgic and get back to the roots of my relationship with AMONG GIANTS. Before knowing "Truth Hurts", I knew Greg's nice videos and that catched me. One of these here:
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