Inlet
| Hum
Inlet
nlet is the fifth studio album by the Champaign, Illinois, alternative rock band Hum. It was surprise-released digitally to Bandcamp on June 23, 2020. The album has been received positively by critics. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
The inscrutable shoegaze legends return with a towering reunion album, their first in 22 years. Unexpectedly, it is their most emotionally accessible music yet.
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Post-Trash
From modern shoegaze groups like Cloakroom and Narrow Head, the impact of Hum is incalculable. Though it’s easy to be wary of a reunion album, Inlet offers exciting and welcome surprises, proving the groups staying power.
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Stereogum
It’s safe to say that Inlet was worth the effort: Although a band returning with new music after two decades can be a dodgy proposition, Hum sound exactly, gloriously, like themselves.
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The Fire Note
even though I really like their RCA releases and Inlet is vacant of a traditional “single” like “Stars” or “Comin’ Home,” the advanced musicianship and sonic experience that Inlet provides represents the best album of Hum’s career.
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mxdwn Music
Hum’s extremely welcome reunion album is the best possible thing to add onto their delicately superb body of work, especially considering a twenty-two year hiatus from releasing music. If Hum were to walk away, leaving their beloved fans wanting more for another two decades, Inlet would be the album to do so with.
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Beats Per Minute
Inlet’s existence at all is a testament to the devout following that Hum has amassed over the last few decades through word of mouth and scant tours. This following are richly rewarded at last – when they hardly expected it. It wasn’t hyped; it came out of nowhere. This means that Inlet may very well be their best, purely since it isn’t burdened by expectation and doesn’t need to rely on anything other than its merit.
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Sputnik Music
To its general credit, this music doesn’t really belong to 2020, but neither is it a ‘90s time capsule: it’s a Hum record through and through, and its assurance as such is far more exciting than talk of timeframes, expectations or comebacks. Hum are right here.
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All Music
It's that kind of wistful, time- and space-bending sensory overload that marked the best of Hum's work in the '90s and which shimmers through all of Inlet.
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VultureHound Magazine
There is not one dull moment over the lengthy tracks. With albums or tracks that are long, you feel as if there are moments that are cut and pasted to create length. Inlet just simply, gets it. Understanding what TOOL and Deftones have done to create strong foundations in heaviness and instrumental, Hum don’t try to reinvent anything but pay homage and lay their own path in a time where it’s hard to find anything that sounds new. If this is the last release we ever have from Hum, they have done more than enough to keep their cult fan base happy until the end of time.
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Treblezine
Hum not only sound firmly in control of their aesthetic, they are actively adding more depth to it. They’re the kind of band who would have been bored if a label told them they had to heat up the leftovers from You’d Prefer an Astronaut. Instead, they carved their own path, with no pressure to do anything but make the kind of music they wanted to—it just so happens that for those who became enamored with Hum the first time, all the elements you hold dear are here. Detached, floating away into introspection, Inlet is an album for isolation.
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The Needle Drop
Returning after decades of studio album silence, Hum tries to reintroduce their classic sound with some added bells and whistles, but falls quite short.
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Under the Radar Magazine
Hum are now a prime example among the bands from their generation that have made good on unfinished business and shown there are different ways to have longevity in music.
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