{"id":18817,"date":"2020-03-25T15:24:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T19:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=18817"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:47:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:47:49","slug":"album-review-hallas-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=18817","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Hallas &#8211; Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hallas \u2013 Conundrum<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Release Date:<\/strong> January 31, 2020<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the best music is the music that you can\u2019t really put into words; music that is hard to describe or even peg with a single genre tag. When Hallas first appeared on my radar two years ago, their music didn\u2019t click with me. The release of their sophomore release <em>Conundrum<\/em> piqued my interest, and after one listen, I was hooked.<\/p>\n<p>While their Hallas\u2019 music truly is hard to describe with words, the Swedish quintet describes their music as \u201cadventure rock.\u201d The opening of intro \u201cAscension\u201d and the first song \u201cBeyond Night and Day\u201d start things off with a blast off into the cosmos followed by the interstellar floating vibe of \u201cStrider.\u201d These two songs set the tone for the greatness that is to come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTear of a Traitor\u201d is a substantial piece of epic space rock, and this is where I can hear how one would call this \u201cadventure rock.\u201d \u201cTear of a Traitor\u201d literally sounds like a comic book that has come to life. Closing my eyes, I could listen to this song, take in the lyrics, and with vivid imagery and full-color expression, I could envision the story unraveling as it took on a Flash Gordon kind of vibe.<\/p>\n<p>The epic 8:54 album closer \u201cFading Hero\u201d is hands down my favorite song on the album. There are so many influences that are wrapped into the sound of Hallas. The vocals are very reminiscent of former Men at Work vocalist Collin Hay, and musically there is a bit of everything from David Bowie, \u201880s synth-rock, and Styx. Instead of full out emulating any of these influences, Hallas has figured out a way to combine them all into one, hot goulash creating a sound that can only be described as, well, Hallas.<\/p>\n<p>Hallas\u2019 <em>Conundrum<\/em> is one of the most unique and interesting albums I have heard in quite a while. Breaking the mold of what I expect most Swedish bands to sound like, Hallas offers something exciting and different. Hallas is a band that we should all keep an eye on, and Conundrum is an album that we should all make room for in our music collections. <em>Conundrum<\/em> is an interstellar journey for the ears, the mind, and the soul, and trust me when I say that this is one ride you don\u2019t want to pass up.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"H\u00c4LLAS - Tear Of A Traitor (Official Video) | Napalm Records\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AEgT9_2yYW8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hallas \u2013 Conundrum Release Date: January 31, 2020 Sometimes the best music is the music that you can\u2019t really put into words; music that is hard to describe or even peg with a single genre tag. When Hallas first appeared on my radar two years ago, their music didn\u2019t click with me. The release of their sophomore release Conundrum piqued my interest, and after one listen, I was hooked. While their Hallas\u2019 music truly is hard to describe with words, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":18818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[2087,2080,2297,2230,2229,2296,2085,2077,180,2078,2090,2084,2086,2079,2076,2196,2088,2089,1844,2081,2082,2083],"class_list":["post-18817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-classic-rock","tag-classic-rock-blog","tag-conundrum","tag-folk-music-blog","tag-folk-rock-blog","tag-hallas","tag-hard-rock","tag-hard-rock-blog","tag-heavy-metal","tag-heavy-metal-blog","tag-instrumental-bands","tag-mailchimp","tag-metal","tag-metal-blog","tag-music-blog","tag-occult-rock-blog","tag-prog-rock","tag-progressive-rock","tag-psych-rock","tag-psych-rock-blog","tag-psychedelic-rock-blog","tag-wordpress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/hallas.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19588,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817\/revisions\/19588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}