PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Hallelujah the Hills‘ 2nd full length album Colonial Drones was released earlier this week on Misra Records. It is a dense and hazy, lo-fi affair, driven by spiraling melodies and thumping percussion. A whirlwind of cello, horns, drowsy keys, crunchy guitar and rumbling bass, the 13-track disc bites, soothes, becomes unhinged and crescendos masterfully throughout.

On “Blank Passports,” the band steers straight through a 4-minute build, while “Oxus Pagoda” dances in and out of its halcyon melody. The song “Variations On The Grand National Championships” rides out most pleasingly on the steady waves of Mathew Glover’s rolling drums. Meanwhile, Ryan Walsh’s lyrics read like a vaporous cloud of dreams, politics and love, somewhere between poetry and a stream-of-consciousness journal.

With noisy production and far-away sounding vocals garnished with harmonies and whistles, Colonial Drones drips of all things indie (minus the irony), thus fitting snugly in the present musical vogue- an album truly of the late 2000s. A mix of bitter and sweet with a hint of earthiness, I see it being the perfect soundtrack for the upcoming crisp fall evenings.

Hallelujah Hills is playing their Boston CD release show this Saturday, 9/26 at Great Scott. They are joined by rising stars You Can Be a Wesley and The Big Big Bucks. Don’t Miss it!

Hallelujah the Hills
You Can Be a Wesley
The Big Big Bucks

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