Seahaven Makes Waves With Long-Awaited Return, "Halo of Hurt"
Photo courtesy of Seahaven
“So it goes/ Simply is as it always was, and always will seem to go.”
Kyle Soto, frontman of Seahaven, whispers these lyrics amidst a slow-ache overture. While the band who grew to prominence with their 2011 debut LP Winter Forever needs no introduction, “Void” signals a new beginning for the Torrance-bred foursome. The track enters with an electronic minor melody, ringing out while samples of ocean waves and seagulls crescendo. Once Soto’s melancholic and reflective voice fades into the foreground, a new journey has been signaled to start. Halo of Hurt has entered the arena.
The self-produced LP was recorded in Omaha, Nebraska at Another Recording Company shortly before the world entered quarantine. Perhaps pure luck or maybe divine timing, this poised the band with the ability to release their new work in November of 2020 as had been planned. With a six-year wait for fans, any more prolonging felt unnecessary.
Album art for Halo of Heart
The band, comprised also of guitarist Cody Christian, drummer Eric Findlay, and bassist Mike Debartolo, followed their first album with Reverie Lagoon: Music for Escapism Only in 2014. After touring the influential piece extensively in the summer of 2016, the group felt removed from their music, referring to the stretch of time as “their dark period.” Soto admitted that he rarely touched a guitar for over two years, and it was also revealed in a press interview that the band had thrown out enough demos to make a third album and called off furthering their search for a new record label. If not for a stint in 2018 touring with Man Overboard for the band’s tenth anniversary, it is unlikely that Seahvaven would have reemerged. According to Soto, the nerves had caught up by the time they took the stage, but the rush prompted them to book their own L.A.-based headlining shows at the end of the year. When they met Jack Round, the founder of Pure Noise Records, at a Balance and Composure show, he offered them the opportunity to join the label and release a new project entirely on their terms.
This freedom is encapsulated in Halo of Hurt’s turn to classical components of indie rock, with experimental undertones. Soto spoke of this return to roots in his statement, “I wanted to bring it back to the beginning of the band --a revived version of our younger selves in my garage in 2009.” He echoed the importance of partnering with Pure Noise Records, and the lack of pressure to reinvent their sound. “No timelines, no pressure. No need to fit a certain mold.”
Tracks like “Lose” evoke a dream-like tone, marching drumbeats, and a single guitar riff repeating throughout. Soto keeps his swooping vocals contained, singing, “Don’t you go on telling anybody anything/ You’re gonna lose.” The narrative pleads for a woman to realize that she left her partner in despair, reflected instrumentally in wallowing piano chords. This contrasts with the likes of “Habor”, which was released as a single. With a powerful breakthrough in the introduction of the song, a second chorus builds from quiet verses to a moment for Soto to shout and Christian to harken back to more traditional guitar markings of rock without abandoning an indie flair. Soto describes the track as having, “ stemmed from just an urge to get in the room and make a lot of noise,” but mentions that the “sparse” nature of the verses is a mark of the band’s style. “Moon”, another single released by the band, pairs a distressed sound with the modified vocals of Soto echoing a broken-down guitar. The song is somewhat of an anthem, a chant calling for listeners to hold onto drawn-out pauses and sway their heads at the harder chords in the chorus.
The emotional balance of slow builds and strong guitar-driven bridges capture the intention of most of this album. The return to simpler times can be noted best in the track “Bait”, a stripped-down acoustic moment that is partnered with heavier riffs and drums as the chorus picks up. “Made you think that I was someone else/ I made you feel like I was worth the risk,” Soto laments. There is a theme in the lyrics throughout, one of lost love and a mix of cries for redemption with regret, and eventually rejection. It is a perfect body of work for reflection, one that encapsulates long drives and wistful stares out of windows. It sounds like winter, battling down the hatches during a rainstorm, the haunting nature of “...searching for something you’re not gonna find.”
With so much left to share, one can only hope this return from Seahaven is permanent. As Soto sings on “Void”, “Only time will tell.”
Halo of Hurt is available on all streaming platforms November 20th, 2020.
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