Hearts of Animals

With Hearts of Animals, singer/songwriter Mlee Marie Suprean has managed to create something very cool and unique, at least within our insular little Houston scene. I mean, we’ve got a metric ton of folkies with guitars, enough to re-populate Lilith Fair several times over, but Suprean’s thrown the whole idea on its head by incorporating huge-ass washes of distortion, weird electronic beats, and electronic vocal effects, and the result is pretty impressive.

To me, at least, the sound brings to mind vintage dreampop, particularly My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus & Mary Chain, but with Suprean’s quirky, Eisley-esque vocals floating over the top. And it works very well; I’ve enjoyed the heck out of songs like “Hearts Break” and “Stars Say No,” both live and on the HoA Myspace page.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to snag an actual Hearts of Animals release — she’s apparently sold a handful of her Lemming Baby CD-R EPs over the past year or so, but hasn’t had any lately, which sucks for folks like me who’d really like to be able to hear more. On the positive side, Suprean’s supposedly got a “real” release coming out very, very soon (as in January of 2008), an actual 7″ on Dull Knife Recs; I’m going to do my damnedest to get a hold of a copy as soon as I can.

In the meantime, hey, at least you can check Suprean’s music out live pretty easily; she seems to be playing almost every weekend in one band or another. Besides Hearts of Animals, she also plays in The Wols, Oculous Sinister, her own Mlee Marie acoustic thing, and yes, a death-metal project called VAARG. (No, seriously.) Taken all together, Suprean’s got to be one of the busiest scenesters we’ve got at the moment.

• Hearts of Animals, Human Size
• Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Young the Giant + Ra Ra Riot (Rev’d!) + Trivium + Sabaton + Hearts of Animals + Fiddle Witch + Tommy Stinson + Only Beast + More
• Big, Sparkly, & Loud: Birthday Club Makes Everything Alright in the End
• Day for Night Lineup, Now Released
• Hearts of Animals, Another Mutation
• Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Vacation Eyes + Mydolls + SXSW Overflow 2013 + SCN Zine Release + Devil Killing Moth + More
• Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Austin Rhoads Benefit + Muhammad Ali + The Wiggins (Video!) + Hearts of Animals + More
• Music for Tom: Two Benefits to Help Tom Carter, This Weekend
• Yr. Weekend: Quintron + FPH NYE Cataclysm + CSMDP + The Suspects + Bonanzarama + More
• The Wild Moccasins
• Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: The Mathletes Album Release (Rev’d!) + Rock the Bells + Bummerfest + Fringe Fest + More
• Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Rock Baby Rock It Day 2 + Young Girls + Hearts of Animals + Sade + Don’t Fuck With Texas + More
• Balaclavas
• The Literary Greats
• Scale The Summit