Downward is Heavenward by Hum

It's groundbreaking work that didn't get nearly enough attention in the MP3 downloading age.

Today, I’m going to talk about Downward is Heavenward, but I can’t dive right in. I need to go back a bit to my moment of discovery with Hum. It’s a worthwhile exercise and means that this will be more like a band retrospective than a single album.

“She thinks she missed the train to Mars; she’s out back counting stars.
She thinks she missed the train to Mars; she’s out back counting stars.”

When Hum released their biggest hit in 1995, the song tricked you into turning up the volume. The delicate plink of the opening guitar riff as a meek vocal sings the line is barely audible without cranking it. So you do. And as Matt Talbott is finishing the line a second time, Hum introduces themselves to your brain stem with a huge distorted guitar hit that Marty McFly might as well have played before reading Doc’s warning about the overloaded amp.

“Stars” didn’t sound like much of the other popular alternative rock on the radio in 1995. In my world, it was a big song, but I’ve discovered over time that many of my peers didn’t even register this song from the era. Even the Wikipedia entry for “Stars” calls the song “moderately successful in the United States.” Other giant songs from 1995? “My Friends” by the Chili Peppers, “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead, “December” by Collective Soul, “Lump” by POTUSA, and “More Human Than Human” by White Zombie. And here was Hum playing their version of hard rock, slacker, and shoegaze and getting it on the radio somehow. It was probably what drew me to it.

For me “Stars” was a launching pad into Hum. There have been a few different lineups, but most people consider Hum to be Matt Talbott, Jeff Dimpsey, Tim Lash, and Bryan St. Pere. I bought the album You’d Prefer an Astronaut and fell in love with it. Beyond “Stars,” I heard so many songs that I loved including “Little Dipper,” “The Pod,” “Suicide Machine,” and probably my favorite, “I Hate it Too.” It was one of those times where I bought a CD and felt like it really paid off with the rest of the songs. I became obsessed.

It crossed over with another obsession when Hum performed “Stars” live on The Howard Stern Show. I was obsessed with Stern in those days to the point that I would use my RCA tape deck, to record the show when I left for school. It was a cool deck, because when it filled up the first side of the tape, it would record to the other side. I would listen to it after school and in the evenings. It’s no wonder that I’ve been obsessed with talk radio and podcasts practically my entire life.

During that part of Stern’s career, he had his show filmed for the E! network as well. Stern really was at the forefront of a lot of things in entertainment. The episode with Hum was especially compelling because Hum wanted to play at full volume with all of their amplifiers. The Stern crew, most notably Fred Norris, thought it was an awful idea and wouldn’t work. As the band is playing, you can see Norris crouching under his desk to try and hear what the mix sounds like in his headphones, but the room volume is just so freaking loud he can’t hear it. Jackie Martling is just cracking up at the whole scene. In the end, the song sounded pretty great, and it was an epic Stern show as the show became the main topic rather than the band.

So, needless to say, my obsession level was high. I went back in the catalog and bought Electra 2000 from 1993. It was good and had a standout song called “Iron Clad Lou,” which was a highlight. Later, in 1997, the band released a new version of Electra 2000 with a new ending track called “Diffuse” and I bought that version too. That version is enduring because “Diffuse” might be my very favorite Hum song. It’s definitely in the top five.

Fast forward in my life a little bit to August 1997. I moved to Boston to go to Boston University. Hum was one of the bands I had in common with one of my friends on my freshman-year dorm floor. We both rushed out to the store in January 1998 to pick up Downward is Heavenward, the new album by Hum. We heard an incredible and mature record that leaned into the spaces more. Where some of the songs felt incredibly well-edited and tight on You’d Prefer an Astronaut, it felt to me like the band was comfortable letting everything breathe. It’s like they let themselves stretch out a little bit. “Isle of the Cheetah” opens the record with an expansive 6:38 with varying movements of layered, heavy guitar that is Hum’s signature sound.

Another contender for the band’s greatest song, “Afternoon with the Axolotls” just limps in with atmospherics before exploding. It hits you with a drum fill that reminds me of Jimmy Chamberlain of Smashing Pumpkins on “Drown.” It’s the song with the lyrics “downward is heavenward” just like the album name. “She hits the plate with both hands high. Downward is heavenward and we are not alone.” It’s slow. It’s heavy. It’s beautiful. It feels understated and huge at the same time.

The band’s prettiest song by a landslide is “Apollo.” I’ve never been much of lyrics guy, but these are just too great to ignore. I never post full lyrics, but these are worth it.

I'm thinking of a number between everything and two
She said you can find a space between my arms if you will stay
Like if we ignore the system they'll just blink out and quickly
Go away

She said I'll keep all the signals that you send home to me
And I'll meet you back here on the ground
It's lift off, lift off again
She's pissed off, pissed off again

Moonlight brings me back again to stay
And I know if she had a way I'd always be through
Tethered to a glass ring she keeps beside the phone
And never ever stepping out into

Blankness and darkness, like underneath a leaf, have settled on
Me here and
Scraped away the sound
She said you can find a place inside my heart if you can stay

And I need you back here on the ground
It's lift off, lift off again
She's pissed off, pissed off again
Moonlight brings me back again to stay

And I know if she had a way I'd always be through
Tethered to a glass ring she keeps beside the phone
And never ever stepping out into
I'm thinking of a number between everything and two

Moonlight brings me back again to stay
And I know if she had a way I'd always be through
Tethered to a glass ring she keeps beside the phone
And never ever stepping out into

Moonlight brings me back again this day
And I don't feel a thing here anymore
Strings of information slowing to a stop
The tether's end is slipping from its knot

I'm stretching out in two
I'm thinking of a number between everything and two
And it's molecules of you

My musical friend and I got two tickets to see Hum at The Middle East in Cambridge, Mass, on February 26, 1998. In that tiny, low-ceilinged room, Hum sounded bigger and louder than any band I’d ever seen. I was already a wearer of earplugs at this point in my life, having just turned 19 just a couple of weeks prior. We made our way to the front of the stage. For most of the show, my knees were pushing into the stage itself with the crush of the capacity crowd behind me. The amps were about head level and were mostly too loud to keep up with the PA system carrying the vocals from the microphones. It didn’t matter. It was still incredible as the band blasted through a perfect setlist with six songs from Downward, five from Astronaut, and two from Electra.

They opened with “Axolotls,” but they made some atmospheric noise first. Finally, the tune became apparent, and the arpeggiated guitar lead-in electrified the crowd. It wasn’t a mosh pit as much as the crowd turned into a singular amoeba flexing, pushing, and changing shape within the confines of this sweaty former bowling alley in Cambridge. There were no reprieves to be had as the band launched into “The Pod” from Astronaut and then “Winder” from Electra. They played “Apollo” and “Stars” as well in an unbelievable set.

I still remember the shock of going out into a northeast January night sweaty and wreaking of stale cigarettes. It’s amazing to me that we were ever allowed to smoke indoors. My friend and I were faced with the pragmatic question about how to get home. I believe we ended up sucking it up and getting a cab because to find a T stop on the Red Line and having to go all the way into downtown Boston just to head back out in a V shape would take so much longer than the straight line by car across the bridge. And to think that we’d have to pool our cash to get it done because even though we had credit cards, Boston taxis didn’t take them yet. With every half mile, we stressed as the cost went up and up.

And just the same, we were virtually flying with the show we had just witnessed. Despite my ear plugs, my ears were ringing and would continue to ring for two or three days, but I had just seen one of those shows I would never forget. Hum wasn’t ever going to be the biggest band in the world, but in my corner of the world that night in a sold-out rock club, they were gigantic stars that owned the evening from beginning to end in their understated way.

And that essentially ended the story. Hum stopped. Despite my personal love of Downward is Heavenward, it wasn’t considered a commercial success. It lacked a big single like “Stars.” File sharing was beginning to take hold on college campuses my freshman year of high school. I’m sure that had something to do with how the album only sold about 30,000 copies. Record labels were merging too, and in 2000, Hum were dropped from their contract.

They occasionally got back together for shows here and there at festivals. Then, in the middle of the pandemic, Hum appeared out of nowhere with a new album, 2020’s Inlet. It was an incredible surprise for fans of the band to receive an album some 22 years after Downward is Heavenward. It’s a Hum album to be sure, but it’s difficult to put it in context considering all that surrounds the band at this point. First, it was released during the pandemic without a reunion tour. Then, in 2021 drummer Bryan St. Pere tragically passed away at age 52.

I still go back and listen to these albums. I would consider myself a Hum fan. I know I just spent a lot of time talking about how maybe they never became all that they could have become, but to me they were all I could have asked for. It’s a band that probably could have been even more successful in a latter era where they didn’t achieve such radio success with “Stars.” Not that I want to take something awesome away from them, but “Stars” probably set the bar to an unreasonable level for the future. Hum could have been a supremely popular niche band selling out clubs and small theaters. They could have kept playing above subsistence level and remained more active to take advantage of their status as a band’s band.

It was proven when Bryan St. Pere passed away. The Indie Drummer Collective did a tribute where all these indie rock drummers played along to “Stars” in tribute to him. It’s so awesome. That’s where I’m going to leave you today even though this was about Downward Is Heavenward. It made sense to use “Stars,” but I guarantee the majority of these drummers who became fans of Hum also love and respect Downward is Heavenward.