To follow dogma is to walk a road paved by hands long dead, where the stones are heavy with certainty and the air thick with borrowed beliefs. Institutions whisper of salvation but demand obedience; they promise freedom yet build walls around the mind. The great mistake is to believe that truth can be written in ink or etched in stone, when it flows like water, shifting with every moment. To walk away is not rebellion; it is simply the recognition that no book, no priest, no doctrine can tell you what is already known deep within. Step forward, and be free.
New York City’s Heavy Halo (aka McKeever and Gosteffects) delve deep into the fire of personal reckoning with Justified, a track that thrashes, aches, and demands release. Built on a backbone of industrial-techno rhythms, its serrated guitars slash through raw electronics, a collision of sweat and circuitry. The track surges forward, a machine with a beating heart, nodding to Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM with the raw urgency of Smashing Pumpkins and the aching howl of The Cure. The ghosts of ‘90s rebellion flicker in its DNA, yet its spirit is welded to the digital age, where raw emotion fuses with cold machinery. In this, Heavy Halo also finds kinship with HEALTH and Poppy, reveling in that chaotic crossroads where flesh meets electric power.
“A raw human core encased in a exoskeleton of dense layers of futuristic electronics,” is McKeever’s description of Heavy Halo’s approach. “This contrast is what excites us,” he declares.
Justified drags us through the wreckage of belief, the slow unraveling of doctrine drilled deep, the quiet war of unlearning. Decades of dogma claw at the mind, their grip stubborn, their whispers insidious. To break free is to fight not just the past but the voice inside, the one that still kneels, still begs, still fears. The lyrics burn like confession, each word a match struck against years of submission. It is exorcism and emancipation, the raw reckoning of reclaiming what was never theirs to take.
“My therapist kept telling me I had Catholic guilt and I kept denying it,” McKeever admits. “But after spending time thinking, I found something there and wrote Justified. I had gone to Catholic middle school and it was a nightmare. There was a hypocritical priest making little kids confess their ‘sins’ while stealing money from the congregation to fund a secret lavish lifestyle. Kids in my grade were deplorable meatheads scrawling Nazi symbols in the bathroom. The vibe was the furthest possible thing from the doctrine preached. Beyond this, I had larger problems with the institution of religion as a whole, the self-righteousness, the fear-mongering, the centuries of violence…I wanted no part of any of this. So I ran as far away as I could into the embrace of dark music and art where I found magic and solace. This song is a justification for anyone who turns away from these institutions to carve their own path. Your truth is within you and you can find your own transcendence and raise up your flag.”
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McKeever and Gosteffects crossed paths at a goth party in Brooklyn, a meeting that sparked something immediate, electric, undeniable. McKeever, a New Yorker through and through, shaped his sound in the crucible of Brooklyn’s indie rock scene, sharpening his voice and composition under Columbia University’s watchful towers. Gosteffects, by contrast, found his rhythm in the pulse of the underground—DJing, promoting, and breathing life into Oklahoma’s outlawed raves before carrying that hunger east.
Together, they forge an industrialized strain of alt-rock, where flesh meets circuitry, where distortion crackles like static on skin. Their first collaboration birthed Heavy Halo’s 2022 self-titled debut, a record conceived, recorded, and cut into steel at Spellsound Studios, Gosteffects’ sonic laboratory. He’s also breathed new life to the likes of Duran Duran with his official remixes.
Listen to Justified below and pre-order Damaged Dream here.
Catch Heavy Halo live on Feb 15th at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere w/ Louisahhh)! Get your tickets here.
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