The Halo Effect - New Album 2023/2024

[Xpyro125]

A little more concrete news, I’m guessing it’s a cover rather than the third album’s lead single. Here’s to hoping we know a bit more either way, and here’s to hoping it’s as good as we’re expecting.

 

[The Grayfox]

I'm assuming it's a Thompson Twins cover.

 

[The Grayfox]

So it's a cover of the song If You Were Here by a band from Sweden called Kent. It's pretty good too. I maintain this, along with How the Gods Kill would've been much better suited for Cemetery Skyline though.

 

[eochaid]

Boring.

 

[A88]

This cover EP has to be one of the most random things ever.

Weird choice of meh songs, done out of style for the band.

Don't really see the point.

 

[DE4life]

I guess they are just having fun, which has pretty much been their mission statement since forming. I wish they'd think a bit more outside the box though. The best metal covers are ones of random bands with totally different styles. In Flames with Everything Counts, Strong & Smart and World of Promises, for example. All so different to the originals that they stand on their own as great metal tracks, not just covers.

 

[Cronopio]

Kent sucking fucks.

 

[Xpyro125]

I didn’t even realize today’s the 20th, just listened to the song now.

Honestly, even moreso than just the stylings fitting with Cemetery Skyline, there’s nothing really here that’s interesting nor feels like THE making it their own. It’s competently performed and produced, there’s nothing bad, but there’s nothing that’ll make me come back to this. At least if it was in Swedish like the original, that’d be something interesting about it. I still really like their cover of How the Gods Kill, but this just feels like something I’ll forget in a couple hours. Feels so unlike THE to go on fucking autopilot like this, man.

 

[The Grayfox]

It doesn't bother me honestly. It's catchy. Still waiting to see what else they cover, but so far, we've gotten two polar opposites. Even though we all know it's not happening, a song from Lunar Strain would be awesome.

 

[Xpyro125]

It doesn't bother me honestly. It's catchy. Still waiting to see what else they cover, but so far, we've gotten two polar opposites. Even though we all know it's not happening, a song from Lunar Strain would be awesome.

I think as long as we get something either interesting or stylized/THE-sounding (not even necessarily melodeath), or hopefully both, I’ll be happy with whatever we get. An old IF, DT, or even Iron Maiden song would be super interesting, but yeah, I doubt we’d get any of those covered.

Even though it’s not a massive departure from the original, I really like how they went about covering How the Gods Kill. It’s flawed for sure, but it feels creative/distinct from their usual stuff, has a wonderful guitar sound and atmosphere, and it’s just a cool pick in general. The most interesting thing I can say about the If You Were Here cover is that they took an energetic song and made it moody and gothic— That’s rather different from the original, which is something I like, but it feels like that’s as far as the cover goes. I’m hoping the rest of the covers feel like they ended up having more time in the oven, I guess.

Also, apparently Kent remade the song a year after in 1998 to have English lyrics instead of Swedish. It’s a small detail, but it should be mentioned.