Sometimes it’s amazing how familiar a song from across the globe can sound. Halfloves hail from Iowa, but their darkened indie vibe would fit right into the explosive Aussie scene like a glove.
Today we present the first listen of their newest track Wrong Songs, a dilapidated and sombre form of pop complete with droning guitar work, addictive vocals and one of the tightest drum fills I’ve heard in the last six months.
Take a listen to the track below, and hear what Halfloves themselves had to say about their freshest cut.
From Iowa with love: Wrong Songs from Halfloves is a melancholy take on indie rock, a macabre and magnetic hit you won’t stop coming back to.
HAPPY: So what’s the song about? I get the sense of something lying beneath the surface.
HALFLOVES: Wrong Songs is about how people can get swept up in romances that are exciting and really feelings-based but totally lacking depth, trust and commitment. We’re a culture who lives for the moment and glorifies the fleeting aspects of our emotions. There’s this cognitive dissonance that comes to the surface as we’re becoming more attached to someone yet simultaneously becoming increasingly anxious about the implications of commitment.
We’re still dancing but the mood is transitioning; like the moment you wake up from a dream and are caught wondering what’s real and what was just fantasy.
HAPPY: Can you tell me a bit about working with Brandon Darner (Imagine Dragons)?
HALFLOVES: Making our self-titled debut record was all of our first times working with a fully-fledged producer. We learned a lot about patience and hard work and the whole experience kind of served as an apprenticeship where we went through different waves of asking ourselves important questions about what making music means to us. Brandon’s not a guy who beats around the bush or holds back opinions which is what we needed as a young group to help coral our good ideas and ditch the bad ones.
Our sound engineer Micah Natera has also continued to be an integral part of bringing our songs to life in the studio as well. Some people might consider their working relationship to be a Batman and Robbin kind of thing but that doesn’t do them justice. I think the way they work together as a team has taught us a lot about how each of our own roles as band members aren’t the same but are equally valued and important to make it all happen.
HAPPY: How does this track compare to your debut album, one year down the line?
HALFLOVES: Making this single with them partially represents some musical aspects that we want to preserve from what we did on the album as well as testing out some ideas which leave the creative possibilities open yet still focus on melody, structure, etc.
HAPPY: And is this the sign of a bigger release to come? What’s up next for Halfloves?
HALFLOVES: We’ve been writing more songs that are kind of all over the place stylistically but for now, we’re just trying to let the creativity flow and not be too concerned about whether a song works in an album context relative to other new songs that are simultaneously taking shape. Good music is born out of an urgency to exist so we’re just trying to grow those ideas from their inception and see where they take us.
