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!
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire