It’s not that Spanish for Hitchhiking ever really went away, but singer and guitarist Dennis Crommett, bassist Max Germer and drummer Dave Hower were mostly doing their own things for a while there.
Crommett, in particular, was busy. After fronting Spanish for Hitchhiking through their 2015 album “Night Alerts,” and joining with his bandmates (including Germer and Hower) in the chamber-pop group Winterpills for their 2016 album “Love Songs,” Crommett veered into instrumental music. He released a pair of meditative collections — “Patterns in a Familiar Room” in 2017 and “I Am Not Done with My Changes “ in 2020 — that feature his guitar surrounded by piano, synthesizers and rhythm parts. They’re lovely, textured soundscapes, but they don’t have the spark of musicians well attuned to each other playing together in a room.
For that, Spanish for Hitchhiking reconvened in 2018 with original member Dave Chalfant returning on guitar (he also produced), and began working on songs for “Wild Love.” It’s the band’s third album over their 20 years together, and the most cohesive effort yet. On 12 new songs steeped in references to the natural world (there’s a lot about water, and skies) and themes of solitude, the musicians sound locked in, as if they’d been playing these tunes together for years. There’s a burst of energy and abandon right from the start: opener “In Stereo” might be the group’s most riotous song, as Germer hurtles through a bassline over Hower’s pounding backbeat, while Crommett and Chalfant’s guitars snarl and sputter.
That same fierce energy fuels “Sikh Man Running,” where bright, crackling guitars burn along over a swift beat as Crommett delivers vivid lyrics by turns descriptive and philosophical. Spanish for Hitchhiking is more reined in elsewhere, but that simpatico sensibility never abates. Measured, overdriven guitars carry “Waves” as the song builds slowly to a towering and lonesome chorus where Crommett lifts his voice above the tumult below. “The Empty Hand” moves from calm and unruffled at the start, where Crommett plays dreamy guitar parts over Germer’s steady bassline, to stormy and unsettled on the chorus, where the rhythm stutters, the guitar surges into a bold riff and Crommett’s murmuring vocal suddenly becomes full-throated.
It’s an exhilarating moment on a stirring album that shows the group’s maturation as musicians and collaborators, and also a willingness to really let fly. If Spanish for Hitchhiking never really went away, it sure is nice to have them back.