HIPPO CAMPUS - Flood 2xLP (Clear Galaxy vinyl)

Label: Psychic Hotline

Hippo Campus were sitting in the green room of a sold-out amphitheater show at the start of the Summer of 2023 when they realized they had a problem. Their fourth LP simply wasn’t good enough. Singer Jake Luppen had been listening to the band’s work as they rolled around the country, trying to tease out how much work remained. All of it, he soon decided. The soul wasn’t there, obfuscated by the need to sound sophisticated and the overwhelming ambition to make their best LP ever, a deeper and more profound record that reflected how their lives were changing.

So they called an audible. They were going to start over. And three months later, the four-member core of Hippo Campus rendezvoused with longtime collaborator Caleb Wright and producer Brad Cook at Sonic Ranch, a playground-like studio complex on the Texas/Mexico border. They gave themselves 10 days to cut the tracks they liked best, to make something to which they could commit at last. Less than two weeks later, they emerged with what they’d given themselves half a decade to make—Flood.