- Rain Lover is the sixth album from Brisbane band Halfway. That's plenty of time to develop a distinctive sound, and this one in style at least will be familiar to fans of the band. Not for the first time from Halfway this is a bit of a concept album, written as it is about the death of songwriter John Busby's father.
Halfway are generally described as alt-country, in fact their bandcamp page is titled Halfway Country. I'd say that title is maybe accurate in unintentional way in that the music is not quite country - though it has a a few of the elements like a pedal steel guitar and harmony singing it definitely doesn't sound like it was recorded out on the farm. It actually reminds me of a band like U2 in its dynamic sense of stadium grandeur.
One thing that has to be remarked upon when discussing Halfway is the fact that music critics love this band. This has been true in the past and from what I can tell is also true of this album so far. Listening to Rain Lover made me think about why this is, because it's not that they are especially cool or strikingly original.
I think it may be that many music critics are middle aged men and Halfway are a rare thing - a band of middle-aged men who sing intelligent songs about being middle-aged men. This album is about losing a parent, but not in the melodramatic way that someone young might write about the premature death of their father. This is about old age, with its slow decline, complex emotions and sense of wistful nostalgia. So we get glimpses of memories, spurred on by places like hometowns or old houses, or sounds like "I hear your voice in the rain / Asphalt pounding out your name".
The sound too is like someone settling comfortably into middle age - it's rock music, but it doesn't try to rock too hard, doesn't rush the songs to a conclusion. It is beautifully played and produced by people who clearly know what they are doing.
This is a welcome thing I'd say. Because while rock'n'roll has traditionally been a young person's game, these day neither the average rock band nor fan is likely to be a teenager in the thrall of raw emotion that has traditionally inspired much of the most iconic rock music.
Still, there is something exciting about that raw unfiltered emotion that is hard to replace. And as I listened to Rain Lover, while I couldn't deny that it is a well written, played and structured album, I think that was what I was craving.
- Andy Paine.