Halloween – Poison Well
Things change, people adapt and that’s all fine. But sometimes it is popular demand that summons back elements from the past. It’s true, for example, that very few listeners discover new music through record stores in the way that they might have many decades ago.
In fact, at the present time, the biggest chunk of new rock listeners have virtually met their favourite artists for the first time on apps like TikTok. More rock music is heard from the speakers of a small iPhone than ever before. Bands like Halloween know this and have adapted.
It’s a good time to do it as well. Social media has particularly embraced lush-sounding, sonically adventurous groups inspired, of part of, the shoegaze or grunge movements. Why? When you primarily hear music off your phone, you eventually desire a sound that can wash over you, that can quickly send you to Dreamland.
Halloween’s “Poison Well” is an excellently produced sound that seems to mimic what riding on a tall boat in very choppy waters is like. The music swells up, hits you, retreats and does it again. It’s both beautiful and terrifying, much like the music video for this single. And who is this for? It’s music aimed at all modern listeners looking for some well-tested sounds that engulf the imagination.
Shallow – Blow It All Away
Classical composers of the 1950s must’ve laughed it all off. Surely, this rock n’ roll thing was a fad. And how could it ever possibly compete with their work even in decades’ time? All that the rockers had to work with were busy guitar progressions and simple drum kits.
But some dared to dream, and just as the 3-minute pop single about girls and cars took on more complexity, great rock composers started to emerge. By the 1980s, bands dubbed by some as shoegaze, groups that inspired Shallow, were creating full-blown feedback-drenched mini operas.
It worked! That’s because while the combos creating the music were smaller than orchestras, and while they usually had no formal training, distorted guitars and punchy drums placed neatly in a studio mix can create the illusion of grandeur just as much as what the classical composers had used.
Shallow’s “Blow It All Away” is, first and foremost, a really gorgeous sound. On one level, it functions just like witnessing a great spectacle of nature does – it leaves you in awe. But the effort would be short-lived were it not for the fact that Shallow added a real emotional weight to the music, something that helps the listener connect the first time around and remain connected.
