Halifax

The Inevitability Of A Strange World (Drive-Thru)
by Scott Hefflon

I don’t remember Halifax being so “Kickstart My Heart,” but the “Hell… Yeah…” is so close, I keep waiting for them to slip up and launch into the Crüe’s chorus instead of their own. Other songs are more, whatever, Taking Back Sunday or something, but ’80s hair bands (can we stop calling it “metal” already?) are obviously a love of the band’s, and with power ballads, layered harmonies, and cock rock strutting, it’s almost kinda cool, kinda like hearing (A) New Found Glory’s take on Warrant’s “Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away” on Fearless Records’ Punk Goes Metal, back when tributes were still kinda cool, Fearless didn’t suck, and punk was still, more or less, punk.

This is Halifax’s first full-length, after an EP for Drive-Thru a couple years ago. This sucker was recorded by Lou Giordano (Taking Back Sunday, and some good bands from the mid-’90s, like Screeching Weasel, and then the classic Boston punk stuff from the ’80s like SSD, FU’s, Jerry’s Kids, DYS, and MN’s Hüsker Dü, too, I think) and produced by Machine (Lamb of God, some other good metal stuff, and again, some wanna-be’s like Armor for Sleep and Boys Night Out, cuz we all have bills to pay). So yeah, Halifax bring the rock like it’s the mid-’90s, when nostalgia for ’80s rock was less uncomfortable, because glam rockers aren’t explaining their wild times with underage girls the same age as their kids are now.
(www.drivethrurecords.com)