One Happy Island, Secret Party That the Other Party Doesn’t Know About

review by dave heaton

This four-song 7” single from the Boston-based band One Happy Island opens up sounding like a party indeed, one with hand-clapping, harmonies, some nice simple pop guitar licks, and, I imagine, plenty of dancing and having fun just being yourself. It’s a giddy love song with a neat premise, built around the notion of a temporary tattoo becoming permanent if the feelings and memories around it leave their own mark: “this temporary tattoo / my throwaway heart / it’s so much better with you / it’s real”. A sweet song, and a lot of fun. At the other end of the 7”, our protagonists venture out to somebody else’s party and feel less comfortable there (“I don’t know what to do at parties anymore”), but make their own party out of it anyhow: “do the mothball with me”, goes the chorus, again a great infectious one. “We’ll define a good time for ourselves,” they conclude. Across these four songs, all excellent, they do exactly that, putting their own stamp on the classic format of the giddy, occasionally bittersweet, pop song.

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