Arts & Culture
TEST SPINS | Neon Trees: ‘Habits’
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When one thinks of pop-rock band Neon Trees, their mind likely goes in one of two directions: either they think of “Everybody Talks,” the 2011 smash hit single off Picture Show, or “Animal,” the catchy track about trying to turn a friendship into something more (with disturbing cannibalistic overtones) off debut album Habits. I fall into the former category, but recently heard “Animal” on the radio, which got me thinking; I haven’t quite forgotten about Neon Trees over the years — I’ve heard both the aforementioned songs countless times, and experienced a brief period of time when Habits’s “1983” and the 2015 single “Songs I Can’t Listen To” were on my playlist — but despite enjoying a few of their songs, I’ve never really felt compelled to dive into their discography. This week, I decided to listen to Habits to figure out why the rest of the album hadn’t reached the same level of success as “Animal” and whether I had been missing out. The record starts out with “Sins Of My Youth” which establishes the album’s theme pretty quickly with the opening line, “I’ve got these habits that I cannot break.” It’s an upbeat, typical pop-rock track, but I can’t help but feel that the lyrics don’t match this buoyant sound. Here, singer and keyboardist Tyler Glenn confesses the things he did when he was younger to his partner, hoping they will stay together post-reveal.