I don’t need to see you
Your presence screams
Will we dance?
A meet with past mistakes?
In Despite Those Times, HALLOWS conjure the sweet ache of collapse: an electric elegy delivered through sweat, sequencers, and self-sabotage. The Los Angeles duo, Vanee Dusoruth and Dom Rolando, drape their confessionals in cold steel and satin, fusing the body-beat grit of EBM with the smudged glamour of late ‘80s synth noir. There’s that infectious freestyle and italo-disco dance influence, with lyrics that remain firmly rooted in the gothic…think Exposé in studded pleather from a West Village sleaze store; disco lights dimmed by regret, armed with the lyrical existential dread of Depeche Mode and Clan of Xymox.
This second single from HALLOWS’ forthcoming third LP throbs with tension and seduction. A spasm of industrial percussion meets slithering synth bass, and somewhere in between, two voices meet again beneath the strobes. Not to reconcile, but to rebreak what was already broken. It’s a song about dancing with danger and mistaking it for love, and loving that mistake just the same.
The accompanying video, helmed by Alissa Wyle, is drenched in decadence and defiance: the pair clad in BDSM regalia, rain hammering down in a warehouse of wasted effort, instruments smashed mid-song in an act of devotional destruction as they wail through their gimp masks. It’s a decadent dirge disguised as a banger. They play through the deluge, not in hope, but because the ritual demands it.
“We wanted to pull the listener into the song, almost like a whirlwind that they cannot fight,” says Dusoruth. “In between the driving percussion and sultry vocals lies a raw, messy, and chaotic love story that will not have a happy ending.”
HALLOWS don’t offer solutions with Despite Those Times, only beautiful ruin. And perhaps that’s enough…because in this economy of feeling, collapse carries its own kind of clarity.
Watch the video for “Despite Those Times” below:
The track was produced by Los Angeles-based producer Matia Simovich. “When we played our demo to Matia he almost instantly said, ‘Let’s go outside and sample some stuff!’, says Rolando. “So we spent the rest of the day in an alley with him and his assistant, Grover, armed with a baseball bat and a field recorder, sampling hits of metal bars, sheets, and miscellaneous objects to use as percussive sounds.”
Listen to Despite Those Times below and order the single here.
The pair officially started in 2019 with the release of the EP Subtle. Soon after, in 2021, the German label Cold Transmission released their first full-length All That Is True. That year HALLOWS completed their first full US tour, playing festivals such as Absolution Fest, Darkspring Boston, and Freakout Fest. In 2023 HALLOWS released their sophomore album, A Quieter Life, via their in-house label, Stoic Media, and playing to broader audiences at festivals such as Substance Fest, Verboden Fest, and Sanctum.
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