Patterns, the 2023 CD by Hello London, speaks softly and clearly. The project, led by Buffalo-based songwriter James Froese, demonstrates everything that makes independent music essential, intimacy, courage, detail, and depth. With this material, Froese offers a quietly stunning eight-track journey, four songs, each presented in both their original and acoustic versions. It’s not just clever structure but a mirror held up to music itself, asking what changes when you strip something down and what remains after all that. Froese doesn’t answer the question and doesn’t need to, because the music does it for him. Hello London has been steadily growing since its inception in 2021, carving a small but meaningful place in the intersection of alternative, emo, and indie rock. In Patterns, this amalgamation fully arrives. The CD presents each track first in its full arrangement, thoughtfully layered guitars, detailed basslines and drums, and powerful vocal harmonies, before offering an acoustic version. This back-and-forth is more than a stylistic experiment. It becomes an emotional conversation. Each song, once dressed in volume and haste, returns in a quieter tone, reintroducing itself like a friend in a different mood.
And what a revealing move it is. The dual versions allow us to hear not just what a song sounds like, but what it feels like in different light. The original tracks are bright in their confidence while the acoustics are fragile in clarity. Both versions offer a unique, deep listening experience. It takes a rare sense of craft to write songs that can hold up under two radically different treatments. And it takes a rare kind of humility to share them side by side. It shows a deep trust in the songs themselves. It also shows respect for the listener. There is something democratic in the structure of Patterns. Froese never tells us which version is definitive. He lets us decide. And that freedom becomes part of the listening process. Some will gravitate toward the full-band arrangements, rich with energy, color, and movement. Others will find themselves haunted by the acoustic takes, raw, exposed, and intimate. And many, like me, will find themselves loving both renditions. The duality of Patterns is a clever concept, serving as a reminder that emotion can live in different forms, sadness can wear noise and silence, and joy can dance or sit beside you. Froese understands this, making him a wise composer. Every instrument is placed with intention. Nothing is overdone or wasted. The original versions feel cinematic without being showy while the acoustics feel personal without being bare. Froese knows when to lean in and when to pull back.
The production is clean and clear. It respects the quiet moments as much as the loud ones. There is space in this album, room for reflection, room for breath, and room for a listener too. You especially feel this ambiance in the acoustic tracks, where the smallest gesture, a breath between verses, a muted chord, a crack in the voice feels magnified and meaningful. Lyrically, Froese avoids cliché and opacity. He writes in clean lines, sharp and honest. His words are open enough to let you in, but precise enough to stay with you. They are never ornamental. They are functional in the best sense: designed to carry feeling. Buffalo, New York, has a long and quiet history of nurturing serious songwriters. Froese belongs in that lineage. He writes in a literal and emotional sense. His music feels grounded. Even when it reaches into memory or longing, it never drifts into melodrama. It stays rooted in real, lived experience. This is not a collection of songs thrown together. There is heartbreak, healing, confusion, and clarity. But there is, above all, presence. Froese is not writing from a distance but from the inside of things. The emo label fits loosely here, not in terms of aesthetic theatrics, but emotional commitment. This is a sound that cares deeply about the listener, form, and truth. Froese never reaches for false drama. He simply gives you what he feels, and lets the songs do the work. That generosity of spirit is rare and it makes Hello London such an important project. This is an album that trusts you and invites you in while believing in the beauty of simplicity.
Perhaps Patterns is a small album with just eight tracks, but there’s a complete universe here. A conversation between sound, silence, fullness, sparseness, strength and vulnerability. It is one of those rare albums that grows deeper with each listen, not because it hides secrets, but because it reveals new facets of what you already know. You should immediately check it out because James Froese’s Hello London deserves to be heard by the broader auditorium. Head to his Bandcamp page and purchase this gem on CD.
Thoughts Words Action 