(Indie Pop, Electronic) Halls - Love to Give [Limited Edition] [2CD] - 2014, MP3, 320 kbps

A little over a year after the release of Halls‘ netherworld-y debut LP, Ark, the London-based musician will see his second full-length hitting the market on February 10th via No Pain In Pop. Initially, Love to Give sounds idiosyncratically Halls-ian, enveloping the listener in an abyss of reverb with spectral vocals drifting in a subterranean atmosphere. But after the warm-up listen, you can hear Sam Howard striving to ascend above the oubliette.
According to Howard: “This is an album about opening up. Ark is the cold album, closed-off, obscure and confusing. I obscured lyrics and hid behind reverb and mumbling. For this album I wanted to reach out more. In some ways it is darker than Ark. I feel that I struggle to connect with a lot of people and I want to connect somehow. Love to Give is about opening up and becoming more of a human being.”
The acoustics on Love To Give incorporates more terrestrial elements with howling brass and woodwinds, organs serenading the life just outside of the recording theater; but the nature of Howard’s songs paradoxically shimmers in the shadows. The beauty of Halls’ music is an indiscernible desire, erratically hurling through his emotional globule.