If there’s no education like adversity, then Hurt is the smartest band around. On the quartet’s second Capitol album, Vol. II, the sweat and sacrifice is palpable in the dozen potent tracks, which further the dramatic alt-metal meld forged on 2006’s Vol. 1. Singer J. Loren goes so far to say that Hurt’s music has the power to save lives: “I know that’s not unfounded, because people have written to the band and told me that.” And it’s saved his life—“I’m compelled to do it. I have no other functionality in this life,” he states unequivocally. His goals for the band are equally forthright: “I want to invoke feeling. Period. If listeners feel good, if it compels them to tears… If all you can think about is a song for five minutes at a time, I’m happy to be that distraction. I’ve wasted my whole life to be that.”

While Hurt logged impressive radio success with the Top 15 Active Rock hits “Rapture” and “Falls Apart” from Vol. 1, it’s immediately clear they’re hardly a typical band, as drummer Evan Johns notes: “People say, ‘you’re a rock star with a record deal, buy me a beer,’ but the thing is, we don’t make any money, and we’re not doing it for money. It’s about being able to be heard. To get things across that mean so much to us, and share it with people every day. We won’t take no for an answer. We want this that bad.”

Vol. II’s ‘first single, “Ten Ton Brick,” can actually be considered the third single—if you look at Vol. 1 and Vol. II as a body of work. “I would have released both albums together, but for a young band, that’s too ambitious. These Volumes are not concept albums—my life is not a fucking concept,” declares Loren, his direct personality as intense onstage as off. “Both records are like a collection of short stories. They often intertwine and cross-reference each other between the albums. Some of the songs were written 10 years ago, some this year, but our songs are often situational, and about irony and age-old truths, so I return to themes that are important to me.” For instance, Vol. II’s “Aftermath” is a companion piece to “Ten Ton Brick,” both songs on Vol. II, the pair akin to a “movement” in classical music. Vol. II’s ‘Summer’s Lost” is related to “House Carpenter” on Vol. 1…which the listener can discern by playing “House Carpenter” backward. There’s also a distinct, if non-specific classical influence in Hurt’s singular sound, courtesy of Loren. Growing up in Halifax, Virginia, population 1,300, the singer, who was homeschooled, nurtured his old soul on writers like William Carlos Williams and stringed instruments, especially violin, both of which inform Vol. 1 and Vol. II. The violin remains Loren’s constant companion as he’s moved from couch to couch over the last three years of Hurt’s L.A.-based nomadic life.

Vol. 1, as one critic raved, was “gothic, confessional, soul-searching… Each song ebbs and flows on waves of flattened, heavy guitars, acoustic strums and symphonic samples, which carry whispered vocals, guttural screams and minor fifth harmonies to the forefront, then gently ease them back again.” Vol. II takes that sound and fury a step further, with bassist Josh Ansley and Paul Spatola (who co-wrote “Ten Ton Brick”) upping the ante instrumentally, the entire band more sure of themselves for their sophomore release, ready to try anything and everything. That experimentation and confidence permeates every layer of the album. “Vol. II sounds a little more like Hurt, which is an intangible thing, but I can say it’s more cohesive; the sound of what I’m stabbing at is more fully realized,” muses Loren. “Odd time signatures, peculiarities--too much of that makes an album sound the same, so we avoided that. There are our harmonies, layers, and lots of stringed instruments, including banjo, dobro and slide resonator guitar. But there’s more of a particular element that is peculilarly indicative of Hurt, and of that I’m happy. Vol. 1 warmed the people up a bit for this album.”

That said, “Vol. II stands alone,” adds Johns, who, as the son of producer Andy Johns (Led Zeppelin, Stones, Joni Mitchell, etc.), nephew of Glyn Johns (the Who, Kinks, Eagles, Faces) and cousin of Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, Rufus Wainwright), knows whereof he speaks. “We really wanted to make sure that was possible. Any good writer--of sitcoms, books or music--if someone walked in at the last minute, you don’t want the art to be totally alien to them. You want to grab them with the last 10 seconds, or the middle 10 seconds. So Vol. II stands alone, but if you look into our past with Vol. 1, you see how they also come together.”

Togetherness was key to Vol. II. Although the sessions were exhaustive, the lineup, together for four years, got along better than they ever had. “Through adversity we’ve done this and I’m really proud of it. When you can’t afford to eat and you work 18 hours a day for six months, I’d call that adversity.” At the production helm (as he was for Vol. 1). was Eric Greedy (Ringo Starr, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Barbra Streisand), who, in tandem with Hurt, realized Vol. II in several studios around Los Angeles. While it wasn’t always smooth sailing, that’s what gives Vol. II— and the band members—a discernible audio edge. “Doing a second record, you expect things to repeat themselves, and none of that happened. It was like a whole new playing field,” relates Johns. “We didn’t want to replicate the success of ‘Rapture,’ for instance, on our last record, we wanted to do our own thing, and there were times when we were at each other’s throats. Times we weren’t talking to each other, then the next day we’d be like, ‘I love you man,’ and start work again. We couldn’t have done it if we didn’t care so much. I was breaking cymbals and sticks— you can hear that in a song like ‘Ten Ton Brick’; the frustration is there. The aggression and energy translated onto the record.”

While Loren refers to himself as “a pretty crotchety fellow,” he assures that Vol. II’s songs aren’t all “negative horrible things.” Rather, they’re provocative. As Loren sings in “Summers Lost”: “Would your maker have opened your eyes if he’d preferred them closed?” Or the incandescent “Aftermath,” a band favorite, which is the “closest thing to a love song”: “But the way she lit the room at night / cast the shadows to their gloom, and I still dream of your perfume…” Hurt’s multi-faceted, textural rock strikes a chord, and tours with like-minded artists including Alice in Chains and Staind earned Hurt a rabid fanbase, and garnered Vol. 1 accolades that included “a perfect debut” and “dark, mysterious and powerful.” Hurt gives thanks to those fans with the appropriately titled “Thank You For Listening” that closes Vol. II. Vol. II is the second—and perhaps final chapter—in this phase of Hurt’s musical spewing, as Loren notes: “These albums represent a stage and a process. Not to say there won’t ever be a Vol. III…” And lest you think all Loren’s “hurt” has been vanquished, think again: “If you think I’m bitter now, you should have talked to me before we did these albums.”

Johns, Loren’s foil in the band, has the final say about the adversity that informs the band and its music: “It’s what makes Hurt what it is, and Vol. II what it is, and for that, we’re grateful. “We willingly and gladly took risks to get what we want out of life. Our bank accounts are literally empty, but we are the richest men alive.”
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If there’s no education like adversity, then Hurt is the smartest band around. On the quartet’s second Capitol album, Vol. II, the sweat and sacrifice is palpable in the dozen potent tracks, which further the dramatic alt-metal meld forged on 2006’s Vol. 1. Singer J. Loren goes so far to say that Hurt’s music has the power to save lives: “I know that’s not unfounded, because people have written to the band and told me that.” And it’s saved his life—“I’m compelled to do it.... (read more)