HÆLOS - Full Circle

HÆLOS’ space obsession exists for a reason. The East London trio’s form of escapism doesn’t belong on this planet. Guitars rooted in funk but flipped upside down are given space, while Lotti Benardout’s vocals - always on the brink of lift-off - avoid gravity at all costs. Dragged by a lunar pull, debut album ‘Full Circle’ waves farewell to Earth from the moment it starts.

If anything, HÆLOS have clung onto the base of a rocket as it shoots off. There’s a pursuit at the heart of ‘Full Circle’. Every song shares the same outward-thinking perspective, and there’s a momentum behind the enraptured ‘Pray’ or the electric grind of ‘Oracle’, which lifts from ‘Kid A’-era Radiohead in a wild frenzy.

The trip-hop spirit of ‘Oracle’ can’t be ignored, either. Massive Attack inspirations aren’t shy in rearing their head, and it’s in moments like these where HÆLOS capture the capital they live in, rather than a fantastical planet hundreds of thousands of miles away.

But for the most part, ‘Full Circle’ avoids familiarity like it’s the plague. This is the opposite of concrete slabs, rising tower-blocks and three meals a day. It’s a nightcrawling, adventurous beast only faulted by its tendency to play the same hand. Gloomy, falsettoed melodrama peppered by sleight, splintered beats is their norm, and they rarely break from it. But HÆLOS are clearly intent on shunning tradition. With that in mind, this is a promising start.