Summer Into Fall—and That’s All
Alternative band Half•Alive’s sophomore effort delivers on cool sounds and poetic lyrics—but it lacks the sense of hope that buoyed their first album.
Review by Jack Hadley
When I discovered Half•Alive’s music in December 2019, I had crested the first happy summits of adulthood—finishing a master’s degree, marrying my dream woman—and entered a valley of intense frustration. I was a new infantry officer in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. Only six months into a dreadfully long six-year military service commitment, I regretted allowing Uncle Sam to pay for my schooling. Next month I would be attending the U.S. Army Ranger School: 60-plus days of patrolling under heavy rucksacks in all weather conditions on reduced food, minimal sleep, and no outside contact. I told myself I wanted nothing to do with Ranger School or this new military profession. Yet, paradoxically, I was heavy with fear that I would fail.
In this combustible mental state, I stumbled onto Half•Alive. I was at the airport en route home for the holidays, exhausted. A curious YouTube thumbnail for Half•Alive’s music video “still feel” grabbed my attention. Three white dudes in short sleeve button downs and khakis, frozen serenely in unison mid-dance, on a palette of dusky orange-browns—nothing felt further from my own day-to-day Army experiences. How could this possibly have 30 million views?
The music instantly captured me. Dynamic percussion, electronic flourish—the attractive, subdued brightness of their SoCal alternative style. Then, on a second listen, I was overwhelmed by their lyrics’ insight into my present state:
Trying to recognize myself when I feel I’ve been replaced,
I can feel a kick down in my soul
And it’s pulling me back to Earth to let me know
I am not a slave, can’t be contained
So pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave, ’cause—
I still feel alive
I downloaded the whole album and listened on repeat until Ranger School.
Around two-thirds of the album’s 18 tracks are repeatable bops.
Half•Alive released their highly anticipated second studio album, Conditions of a Punk, on December 2, 2022. In the three-plus years since their first album (and the “still feel” music video), their fanbase grew to an impressive 2 million monthly Spotify listeners, and they opened for Twenty One Pilots’s Takeover Tour. Album pre-releases teased fans for almost 18 months as its scope expanded and expectations (mine included) ratcheted upward.
In our world that unfairly expects “the same, but different” of artists’ sophomore performances, Conditions of a Punk still delivered. For starters, the album is musically phenomenal. COAP’s production is Half•Alive’s richest yet, carrying again that cool-but-not-too-cool alternative energy and crescendoing with eclectic instrumentation. The opening title track flows seamlessly between fluttering verse piano runs and lush, rhythmic refrains. The ethereal seven-four time signature in “Move Me” is fresh but not distracting, a rare musical accomplishment. “Nobody” combines spare electronic percussion, chaotic synth funk, and gargling auxiliary vocals behind neurotic melodies. Around two-thirds of the album’s 18 tracks are repeatable bops.
But Half•Alive’s excellence, and the real reason to listen to COAP, is their soul-baring lyrics, maturing in complexity alongside their music. “Never Been Better” (featuring Orla Gartland) sarcastically grapples with the duplicitous outward projection of success.
At the top—“Congratulations!”
Heart so full I know I’ll break it…
Scared of all the dreams I’m chasing
I’m on the edge, like I said, I’ve
Never been better
“Summerland” is an excited incantation of summer love, and a grieved recognition of its fleetingness.
But something about May makes it all feel better, baby
Summerland holds what I want right now
It’s like the hoodie you find and you wear forever, baby
Whatever ain’t golden now will only come back around
“Nobody” is a harrowing dual confession, both a sardonic admission of self-centeredness and an honest diary of personal obscurity.
Moving up the ladder doesn’t really matter, as long as I’m in the lead…
Playing this game, it’s easy to lose both ways
Yeah, it’s hard to be someone—and it hurts to be nobody
Evoking ‘90s west coast rap sampling vibes, “Did I Make You Up?” juxtaposes the confidence of a nascent relationship with lyrics searching for post–break up answers.
You’re clearly disconnected, so who am I connected to?
Some person you projected—were you ever telling me the truth?
Other reviewers and lead singer Josh Taylor himself have emphasized the album’s thematic focus on failed romance. This is true, although the album is also more than that. It’s an exploration of the painful paroxysms of the modern young adult heart, across life’s various but connected domains. The album’s recurring metaphor of summer turning into fall captures the reality of suffering and the paradox of progress—the necessity of pruning a youthful punk’s ego, even dying to oneself.
The summer-into-fall metaphor never gives birth to the vitality of spring, here or anywhere on the album.
To understand the meaning and significance of COAP, we must also compare it to Half•Alive’s first studio album, Now, Not Yet. NNY was a cerebral reflection on the tensions of Christian existence, both admitting struggle and attaining hopefulness. Hit song “still feel,” quoted above, is one emblematic example. NNY’s final, climatic song “creature” is another, concluding: “Slowly I’m recovering / the beauty of discovering.”
COAP’s near-exclusive focus on pain, by contrast, reduces the heavenward pull of their lyrics. Of the 18 tracks, only “High Up” reflects on the hopefulness of grace. And unfortunately, its lyrics, judged by the high standard Half•Alive has set for themselves, are subpar. Tracks “Hot Tea” and “Move Me” artfully pair lurid love imagery with “you” pronouns that could point to a loving God—or just as easily to a human lover. The lack of clarity makes them near-misses. The refrain from “Back Around” also offers partial but incomplete glimmers of hope:
I’ve been on my own, changing with the seasons
Dying with the leaves, I’m coming back around
Little did I know, start to see the meaning
Find what I believe is coming back now
This chorus appears to end optimistically. Even a later back-up vocal further offers, “No season [of lostness] lasts forever.” Yet the summer-into-fall metaphor never gives birth to the vitality of spring, here or anywhere on the album. If one is still dying with the leaves, have they really come “back around”? Thus the album’s final song concludes: “Where is the road? I got so lost.”
COAP therefore meets pain primarily with obfuscation, vacillation, or despair. This lopsided treatment of pain is unfortunate, because Half•Alive has historically served as a uniquely wise and nuanced Christian voice on the tensions of earthly life. This nuance is particularly important in today’s quagmire of coarse opinions and digital diatribes. On one hand, the Church often fails to listen or empathize. It prefers to avoid ambiguity, diminish the reality of suffering, and offer premature platitudes about the “hope we have in Christ” to questions not yet understood. On the other hand, our prevailing modernist artistic culture, from Kurt Vonnegut to Billie Eilish, addresses pain with penetrating thoroughness—yet rarely offers real hope. The perceptive COAP listener is left feeling modernism’s characteristic gnawing hollowness. This is a great loss compared to what Half•Alive’s sophomore album might have otherwise been.
Even so, Conditions of a Punk is a must-listen album. Despite any of my disappointments with the album as a whole, “Back Around” was my number one most listened to track of 2022. What can I say—it’s great music. After all, who are we to demand philosophical or spiritual nourishment from an alternative band? We can merely hope that their next album will mark another change in seasons, a refreshing rebirth from winter into spring. Maybe even a true coming-back-around.
Jack Hadley is an Army officer stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He has a master’s in philosophy from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, obtained on a Fulbright Scholarship. Only an amateur musician, he’s married to (professional) songwriter/composer Jenna Cox-Hadley.
Conditions of a Punk was released by RCA Records on December 2, 2022. You can listen to it wherever music is streaming, or buy a copy from the artists here.
