Halls - Love To Give

Halls’ debut, Ark’, conjured up epic, stark vistas. Set in echoey church halls these were modern mournful, hushed hymns of ethereal beauty, with the words often hard to decipher. It made for a gorgeous but desolate journey. 

’Love To Give’ mines from the same tender and striking well, but there’s more life to it; colours burst through at unexpected times and there’s a sense of adventure and pushing things forward.

The opening title track begins as a sparse opener with breaks and silences before guitars come in and the horns rise like sunlight piercing the clouds. Its beautiful chug is reminiscent of ‘Sunflower’ by Low, and the shuffling momentum of the aptly titled ‘Waves’ again sounds like it could have been taken from ‘Things We Lost in the Fire’.

The twinkling ‘Aria’ with its glacial splashes of piano and mournful, moving lines about ‘Now that it’s done’ is almost funky. ‘Forelsket’ is like a storm slowly building and coming to life. There’s a wild crescendo of horns and a mesmerising use of tension and release. ‘Sanctus’ again uses the idea of pushing and pulling and it’s that idea which permeates the album. It’s shown most powerfully on closer ‘Body Eraser / Avalanche’ whose eerie, warming tones gives way to crashing waves of rolling drums, a cacophony of noise.

‘Love to Give’ feels like the natural elements working together. No longer funereal marches, this is Sam Howard creating something that feels truly and vitally alive.