Touch & Go Records
2003
Hocus-Pocus
About This Album
Arriving just over a year after the excellent High Society, Hocus Pocus is Enon's attempt to sum up where it has been on its previous albums and strike out in new directions at the same time. These contradictory impulses result in an album that's a musical tug-of-war: while many of Hocus Pocus' tracks sound like pleasant but not especially distinctive reworks of High Society songs, there are almost as many that suggest Enon is moving in some intriguing new directions. While there's nothing inherently wrong with "Spanish Boots"' good-natured indie rock or "Shave"'s atmospheric, Asian-influenced new wave, it tends to sound like slight variations on High Society's "Window Display" and the band's breakout hit "In This City," respectively. Unfortunately, this problem plagues a good portion of the album: songs like the pretty but vague "Monsoon" and the meandering "Storm the Gates" sound underdeveloped, like outtakes from High Society with all of that album's tension and weirdness removed. Hocus Pocus also suffers from some strange sequencing: most of its quieter numbers are placed near the beginning of the album and the louder tracks are dumped anticlimactically near the end.
Track List (try tracks 1,5 and 6)

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