lundi 4 octobre 2021

Half

 

Half is hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and started as a two-men studio project around 2018 if I'm guessing correctly. I assume the name of the band comes from being a duo, but after all, who gives a damn?
 

 Demo Of Half, released in 2018, starts like you'd expect, with some straight forward, simple punk songs full of 1-2-1-2 drumming and angry vocals. Some faster parts break the mid-tempo pace most of the songs are based on while the guitar brings the little extra interesting something that hook you up enough to want to come back in a couple of years to see how it's evolved.
 
 
  Ok that was just the start, there is also the painful Razor which drags us deep in some parts of the cold wave world I don't really want to visit and there is Time Will Destroy It which is probably a good private joke making fun of some weird EBM drone stuff but turns out in the end to be a pain in the ass.
So I can clearly feel that these guys are in between the world of hardcore punk and some darker shores, closer to post-punk, goth and other weird electronic scenes, and it's an interesting mix after all. This demo, despite being not very convincing (but that's a demo after all), makes me wish that they will keep digging in the right direction. 
  
 
 
The duo comes back one year later with their first full length (if a 7-track 19-minute long record can ever be called that) which is, like the demo, a digital-only release if I'm not mistaken.



As the first track makes us clearly understand, the Philly duo maintains the focus of their 2018 demo (which was mainly hardcore punk) but their home recording and effective songwriting abilities have clearly improved in a year. Far from sticking to the "let's play some fast hardcore, dude" motto, Hype I and Burt Murder (great names by the way) don't hesitate to venture in a slower, more US punk-minded area with tracks like Just Tell Them You're Still A Student (great track's title dude) which ends slow enough to perfectly introduce the pace of Skin Trashers and its old-school horror punk vibe.
These two guys successfully explore the land of 80s US punk (I can't help but think of Circle Jerks on tracks like George Town for example) but they're far from limiting themselves to heat up the same old formulas (which is sometimes more than enough to make a good punk band by the way), no they manage to successfully play with the codes, to bend the genres' edges and to distort all that shit to make tracks that come really well together in a "harmonious" whole.
 What I mean is that I am particularly sensitive to albums that manage to build a "journey through various levels of intensities", building ascents and descents, bridges between rage and speed, gateways between several levels of emotions and, above all, "rest areas" that allow you to inhale a well-deserved breath of air after a steep hardcore track. And I do believe that's what Half has successfully managed to create with The Years of Time.
 
 
 
  As on the demo, they can't help but conclude with a dark, slow and rather boring track that probably fills a need for coldness and gloominess that this rather successful punk record (so far) was lacking.
If you ever feel the same urge here is a little tip by Burt Murder himself: The snare sound on track 7 was achieved by placing a large turd on the drum's surface. It was wrapped in many layers of saran wrap and masking tape. 
And I would add: please skip the baked beans in the morning.
 
 

 Summer 2020: it's a two-track single we get this time, the hard to describe Three Animal Bones whose slow punk vibe and distant "radio" vocals don't really convince me but which got nevertheless something from the Half I know, and the "surprising" 3AB whose haunting and strange beginning makes me think of Twin Peaks until the tortured, twisted, heavy and desperate vocals, sifted through a rather ugly "radio" filter, come to add an extra layer of discomfort it definitely did not need.



To make it short: not the release I'd recommend to anyone who wants to get into Half.
 

cool art by Brendan McAllister

And here we finally reach the record which introduced me to Half's sound and convinced me to lay down the few words that your eyes have the pleasure of reading right now.



Wiss is a record you gotta listen to a few times. Don't be mistaken by Fast, the opening track, which may make you think that Half is just making once again this good old mix of old school US punk and modern sound, nah: Half has taken off and spread its wings to the fullest.
  Probably benefiting from the best recording and mixing quality of its "career", the duo develops its "art" with care and subtlety in the different directions already briefly explored in the previous records. There is the "classic punk" side of course that has now turned into well mastered songs called Fast and Damn for example, songs which recall a lot but don't make any names immediately pop into mind (which is a good point I guess).
 
 
And then comes the 4:46 long Firepit. Ok I have to admit I have not been really nice with the dark-wavish tracks from their previous releases, but surprisingly I find this one quite enjoyable. It probably comes from the strong post-punk side gently built up all along by the guitar, even imposing itself during the 3:45 mark explosion and its downfall. But there's news here, we don't get a lonely darkish track only this time, Laphroaig follows quite naturally as another good post-punk track.
 
 Belltower appears like a hybrid monster between the punk Dr Jekyll and the heaviness of an indescribable Mr.Hyde, it's slow and fuzzy as fuck and then it's fast, the vocals are upfront and in your face and then distant and lost in the mist, it's angry ok but it's also sad and full of despair... and what about this insane piano part which takes us into the mental image of the haunted house that we all have in our subconscious, an image built during childhood evenings spent alone in front of more or less cheap horror movies while dad and mum were out...
But it's Projection which really put me on my knees, starting like a ballad taken from The Stooges first album it turns into a highly deranged soft song recalling the Reverend Beat Man / The Monsters and their obvious lack of sanity. I love it.
 
Ok that's already way too many words about a band called Half
Let me just recap: it's fucking time that a bloody punk label takes these guys out! 
Half rules!
 
PS: it looks like Half has turned into a real live band.
 
 
  N,J'Oi!
 
 
 
  You can listen to HALF on Rien à Faire #27
 
 
 
 
  

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