Halo of Hurt

There was a time when it looked like Seahaven might never make music again. The sonic leap from 2011’s cathartic, gritty debut LP Winter Forever to 2014’s Reverie Lagoon: Music For Escapism Only – a wondrous sequence of nocturnal, fireside soundscapes – turned heads through the underground. But it left them with an almost impossible act to follow. Shows became sporadic. Heading into 2020, it had been over half a decade since the quartet released its previous album. Fans feared it was all over. For Seahaven themselves, it sometimes felt that way, too. “I don’t even know if I picked up a guitar for two and a half years,” admits frontperson Kyle Soto.

Enter Halo of Hurt, Seahaven’s first album in six years and a riveting new chapter in their ongoing evolution. It’s an adventurous rock album that urges you to grapple with your self-doubt and innermost demons, then cast them into oblivion. Harbor captures Seahaven’s evolution perfectly: guitar tones shimmering like ripples on a lake, just before the sturdy riffs of a gripping chorus – and a potential new live staple – barrel their way in. Another haunting standout, Moon is well worth the sleeplessness it may induce, with its distorted guitar screeches, Findlay’s skittering snare, and Soto’s dusky lullabies (“You were safe below the moon, weren’t you?”) A cocoon of pretty plucking and ghostly guitar effects, Bait may be the most gorgeous thing the band has ever written.