Hallaballoo is a Minneapolis band that grew out of friends playing in basements around the city in the early 2000s, less a plan than a habit of showing up and following the music. Rehearsals turned into shows and tours, and the group has since become a large collective that plays psychedelic-tinged melodic rock with a strong funk streak and regularly brings in outside lyricists, vocalists, and engineers. Gravity, their fourth album, came out October 2nd, nine songs recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
Gravity
The room is part of the story. Pachyderm, where Nirvana made In Utero and PJ Harvey made Rid of Me, hosted a lineup that had spent enough time together to improvise with confidence, and drummer Travis Johnston says that familiarity is what let some songs come together with almost no pre-production. The band usually recorded the instrumental foundations first and added vocals later, and stories swapped after tracking sessions sometimes pointed a song in a new direction. Johnston counts 24 songs tracked by the current lineup, and nine made the album. Guitarist James Gross says longtime listeners will find small musical callbacks to earlier Hallaballoo songs tucked inside, and the band treats the jam as the starting point and the song as the destination.
The album opens on a southern rock swagger with “Just Sit Back,” where a strong, confident vocal carries a story that pulls you in from the first verse. “Undercover Bitch” follows with a harder edge. It was the first song this lineup recorded, a hard-hitting indie rock track with lyrics by Nick Murray and a guest vocal from Kaity Heart, whose delivery moves between controlled passages and raspy bursts, produced by Gross, mixed by Ron Nevison, and mastered by Craig Holets. Johnston says it’s the song that keeps sticking with friends and family who hear the band. The pace lifts again on “Perfect Midnight,” which carries the southern rock feeling into a livelier setting, with layered harmonies that are both compelling and well done. At two and a half minutes it’s the shortest song on the record, and it makes every minute count.
The sound shifts toward throwback on “It Isn’t Easy,” a midtempo song colored by horns, with a more solid, fully built story and a lead vocal that sounds great inside the older-school setting. The title track brings the grit. Piano running through it adds a theatrical streak, and the real payoff arrives when the song slows down, opening room to settle into the storytelling and giving the grit a reflective turn. Aaron Short is credited with the lyrics, and the song fits the idea the whole record circles, the pull and resistance of life, with heaviness set against freedom and surrender against fight.
Then the mood turns playful. “Ain’t No Big Wup” sounds like a live recording, which suits its origins in sessions with almost no pre-production, built on the players’ trust in one another. It’s tongue-in-cheek, uptempo, and very catchy, a welcome burst of fun after the weight of the title track. “Dirty Fingers” goes the other way, a heavier song with a huge number of instruments in the mix that puts the focus squarely on the creativity of every player. Rather than leaning on a single hook, it lets the arrangement be the attraction, and at under three minutes it packs in more ideas than its length suggests. “Inches Away” has a rushed, uptempo feeling that’s exactly right for the vocals, which carry the same urgency, and it runs right up to the edge before the record lets go.
That release comes with “Starry Skies,” a lighter sound that feels refreshing after so much heaviness. At just over five minutes it’s the longest song on the album and takes its time, easing in with restrained percussion and delicate piano before soulful, blues-inflected vocals settle over a deep groove. It’s cinematic without being showy, and it lets the album end on an open, easy note instead of another punch.
Final Thoughts
Gravity is a lived-in rock record with real range, moving from southern rock storytelling and tight harmonies through horn-tinged throwback, grit, and loose-limbed fun before settling into a lighter close. It’s a strong showcase of a band whose shared history shows in every arrangement. It’s available now. Follow Hallaballoo on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and find their music on Spotify.
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