Hoops’ full-length debut, Routines is a bittersweet and honest record that sounds both warmly familiar and jarringly distinctive. Whereas their previous releases were recorded on four-track tape machines in living rooms and basements (both their own and their parents’), Routines marks the band’s first sessions in an actual studio – namely, Rear House Recording in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Jarvis Taveniere (Widowspeak, Quilt). Those sessions, however, were just one step in the band’s careful creative process. After a few months of touring, they returned to Indiana to set up their gear in Krauter’s parents’ basement and began experimenting with the studio-recorded tracks. Some songs they only tinkered with, others they scrapped completely and rebuilt from the ground up. They were determined to make a record that sounded like Hoops. The result is Routines, the sharpest and clearest delineation of the band’s sound thus far, drawing from and emphasizing each members’ distinctive influences and personal styles: four guys making music that is larger than themselves.

“Feelin Fine” is an aural capsule of summer; it’s built on speedy, luminous guitar work and some murky melodies—the latter a little bit reminiscent of Real Estate’s groggy earliest output” – Fader

“A shimmering and playful mix incorporating the best bits of acts like Felt and Ariel Pink – instantly stood out to me, sounding about as lo-fi as you can get but mightily ambitious and with strong melodies all over the place” -NME

“For our money, the songwriting is consistently as strong as the stuff with which it will inevitably be compared — Mac Demarco comes to mind — and there are legit flashes of brilliance to be found in the tapes. And those flashes remain on the groups official debut EP for Fat Possum, which is even better.” – Gorilla vs Bear

“Cool 2 is a shimmering melodic mirage that will likely keep sounding better and better as the heat continues to rise” – Stereogum