Photo by Tom Westwell
Listen to the jagged track Modern England by post punk alt rock Portsmouth (UK) based Hallan and you may feel keenly away of the British plight. Amidst guitar, a super dense bass attacks while the drums anchor the song down, Conor Clements' verbal diatribe spews a list of our lives situations weighing us down like boulders chained to our shoulders:
"we want change in our lives, we don't have the strength to do it right"
"no job just breathin' dirty air and a dirty feeling"
"housing crisis, dead bodies in the river, the wages getting thinner but the fat cats getting bigger"
We can relate in the States and probably wherever life seems greener they can relate too. Hallan also talks about the insidiousness of addictive social media "pugs and face changing apps".
The song swings and punches away, all the way through. The barrage is constant but maybe one can take solace in the fact that everyone is feeling it, this bloody cosmic joke. Just don't feel it to hard man. If I could actually go to a club and mosh away maybe I would feel better but all I can do is dance with myself. Fuck me.
Of the song, the band offers:
“It’s the characters in our town, the conversations they have and what we see on our television sets. We want to reflect what’s going on in the here. We don’t want to make a one-sided political message or talk for a generation. The song is exactly what it sounds like. A condensed England if you will. With so many strange and vapid trends gripping the nation sometimes you have to take it all in and find some humour beneath the surface. Pugs and face changing apps. What's that all about? And how could we forget Brexit? It’s a good job we all have our red passports. But then again does anyone in the country have a clue what’s ever going on? Maybe it’ll all blow over if I stick to my microwave dinner and keep my eyes on the screen.”
Hallan are: the aforementioned Conor Clements (Lead Vocals), Josh Ransley (Guitar), Joshua Tweedale (Bass Guitar) and Adam Mills (Drums)
-Robb Donker Curtius
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A tide of filth arises on the shores of a stalemate state and with it the inhabitants of a nation bend to the whim of the great wave machine. The young men of the 21st century weep as their favourite football team lose and the same young men remain expressionless as they endure their repetitive day to day lives.
Hallan are four such young men. Writing not just as spectators but as young individuals living in the magnolia of 21st Century Britain, Hallan take influence from Post-Punk music of the past to create material replete with honesty, humility and integrity.
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