halfsour
Massachusetts trio halfsour just followed up their HHBTM Records’ album tuesday night live with the school of pop & scuzz heard on their new EP charm school. Available on wax via Disposable America/Too Far Gone & on cassette via Disposable America; halfsour’s Zoë, Matt & Ian bring about their most fierce & ferocious sound heard to date where all chords & arrangements are modeled with plenty of hooks that will keep your head ringing for hours afterward (in the greatest of ways). For those that missed the boat with tuesday night live—charm school is here to charm, enthrall, entertain & delight you through the deluge of fall’s seasonal transition to winter.
The EP is kicked off with “Ten Year Tenure” that brings an anthem that you can annoy your entire college faculty, designed to be blared on a boom-box whilst walking down the halls of the Humanities building. Attentions move to wax on the cool & tough delivery heard on “Vinyl Siding” that rolls through the angular-jangle of “Scenes From The Couch”, that carries over the torches of ennui & new mandated opportunities that lament the season of sun with Zoe’s refrain of “summer’s gone” heard on the dog-day testimonials of the ultra-loud “Day Dogs”. Those sunny day longings are wrapped up into lamentations executed like an anthem on the righteous “Ice Cream Dinner”, right before taking your for a spin & roll in the murdered-out menace of “Black Dodge” that fires head-on into the allure of the night in what sounds like a suped-up Dodge Charger hell-bent & hurdling down a derelict highway.
Zoë Wyner from halfsour provided us with the following reflections on the making of their new EP:
Charm School is pretty much just about all the stuff we typically write about—whatever we are annoyed or amused with at any given time, or just life and it’s weird nature in general. We definitely didn’t include any pre-meditated themes on this one, but we never really do ha ha! In terms of how we write/work as a band, our creative process is probably the most constant aspect of our music. Someone comes up with an idea and we run with it until it becomes a full fledged song. Sonically, this EP is a bit different than our other releases—it’s a bit louder and gnarlier. That wasn’t a conscious decision, though, it sort of just happened?
In terms of the quick turnaround, the LP that came out in January was already recorded a full year before the release, so those songs felt pretty old to us by the time it came out. We actually mixed the new EP the weekend of our LP Boston record release show. They’re not really related in any significant way—they definitely have similarities and differences sonically. As a band, we’re pretty easily bored and are constantly writing songs and are way ahead of our releases—it takes so long for records to come out that it’s kind of hard not to be. We released an 11 song tour-only tape in August and we’re working on writing our next full length now!
