For those of you not familiar with HNIA: essense of 70's lite-rock fem vocalists, a-la Roberta Flack, with current production sound and indie sensability. Rainy night music, meloncholy lite. Top notch production. Some tracks are long, 8 to 11 mins, but they don't drag, they jam and move along nicely. Everything's good on here.

For you old-skool 4ad fans: Put aside your memories of Livonia, the otherworldly songs of alienation and abruptly halting melodies are yesteryear's- mostly. They discovered rock in '97 (quite fun IMHO, "Nice Day" is my favorite release) and have become more expressive with a wider range of moods and sounds. That said- there are some tracks on here for you! The 70's soul peaked on their previous release, "Someday my blues..."- this release has nods back to their early days. Appropriate as this is HNIA's farewell to 4ad, they're going the way of Frank Black.

Tracks for old-skool 4ad fans, introspective:
1.A short instrumental, strings & echos (think interlude off "filigree & shadow")-fades into 2
5.Piano, acoustic guitar, voices, no effects so it might not really fit in the old4ad-section. But her singing is more in the old style than soulful. Could be a seague to goth.
+6.vibraphone & cello, slow, instrumental like 1
8.Short song of insecurity.
+11.Mellow and wistful. This is tough because the intro is 4ad-ish and there's this electric guitar bit that's soo 10-years-ago in there, the vox and some other guitar bits are very new-skool though. It's a nice synergy of old & new HNIA.
+13. slow, loose, some acoustic guitar and off kilter sax, first half is instrumental, minimal production, sounds like a rehearsel. A Jimi Hendrix cover?! this & 6 are sublime

Their "current sound":
+2. excellent jazzy lite-rock number. This so belongs on AM radio. last 55 seconds are a cool impressionist instrumental jam, a good setup for the next track.
3.mid-slow, steady simple beat, vibraphone, admonishing song
+4.Indie-pop, lite, title may be "teardrops" but they make a rainbow, catchy. Ida cover.
7.this is "daytime" music, still laid back.
+9.Opens w/funky drum break and boppy sax! Funk/soul jam, fun, lots of sax noodling.
10.mid-slow, cool
+12.Funk/rock, some wah pedal and overdrive. Get down.