Sounds From The Junkshop #62 - The Black Halos

 

"This ain't nothin' really new, everything's just tried and true, sure the name may change but the product's still the same..." - Black Halos - Retro World

There was a weird moment around the turn of the millennium where it felt as if Canada was making a sly play to become the world centre for cool rock 'n' roll bands. I remember in my early twenties discovering the Black Halos, Danko Jones and Crash Kelly in quick succession, all very different groups but all of whom well and truly kicked arse. Add to that others such as Robin Black and the IRS and the Red Light Rippers and it really did feel like something was starting to stir in the Great White North.

I first encountered the Black Halos some time around 2002 via a split Christmas single they'd done with fellow SFTJ alumni Bubble on notorious Sunderland label ChangesOne (who also had the likes of Antiproduct, the Diamond Dogs, Broken Teeth, the Streetwalkin' Cheetahs, Darrell Bath and Neil from the Yo-Yos' other band the B-Movie Heroes on their books). It was their B-side Radio which really grabbed my attention with its scuzzy riff and frontman Billy Hopeless' Stiv Bators style snarled vocals.

The group were on a bit of a roll at this point with their second album The Violent Years being released on Sub Pop after their 1999 self-titled debut had brought them to people's attention. I bought both of them shortly afterwards and really enjoyed them - there was a real anger there that was a sharp contrast to the cringy goofball frat-punk humour that was prevalent at the time with the seething likes of Retro World, Jane Doe and Last Of The 1%ers showing a genuine anger and frustration. As someone who was rapidly entering his "angry young man" phase (see the Stiff Little Fingers GDR entry for more on that), it definitely struck a chord with me.

2005's Alive Without Control saw the group move to Liquor & Poker records who had the not entirely dissimilar Backyard Babies on their books and they really seemed to be pushing the group with the album spawning no less than four singles but that hoped-for hit never happened. Again, it was a good effort but I think the truth is that the Black Halos remained a staunchly underground outfit in the UK - I certainly don't ever remember them touring anywhere near where I lived during their run (they did a few tours of mainland Europe and may have done the odd London gig but I'm pretty sure they never made it to Leeds or Bradford) and it was a real shame. I think unfortunately they were a band who seemed to be perpetually swimming against the tide - too savvy for the fratpunk numbskulls and then too angry and sharp to fit in with the self-pity of emo.

The group would stagger on for a fourth album in the form of 2008's We Are Not Alone despite losing guitarist Rich Jones to Amen and from thence to the Yo-Yo's and then the Loyalties. It was another good effort, especially the furious Suck City and the ominous Holes but on the tour to promote it the group had all of their equipment stolen and subsequently split up because they couldn't afford to carry on. A real shame.

Jones would be by some way the most prolific of the group following their split - after the Loyalties split, he would end up joining Sorry & The Sinatras with his former Amen bandmate and ex-Wildhearts bassist Scott Sorry before moving on to join Michael Monroe's band following in the footsteps of both Ginger and Dregen. More recently though, the group reformed in 2016 with the new line-up including Hopeless, Jones and fellow original guitarist Jay Millette with a new rhythm section. I was lucky enough to finally see the band live at the Black Heart in Camden in 2018 and they absolutely ripped it - a great night out. The group have also put out a series of singles, most recently the excellent Uncommonwealth EP (which we reviewed in the Singles Bar a few months back) and hopefully a new album will be on the way some time in 2022.

There's a general theme among the bands who end up in Sounds From The Junkshop that they were groups who were making great life affirming music that was unfortunately completely out of step with the times and certainly the Black Halos are another prime example of this. Ferocious and feral but with killer hooks and tunes that dweebs like Blink 182 would have given their right arms for, they should have been massive, it's just that unfortunately their brand of scummy rock 'n' roll, one part Dead Boys and one part Hanoi Rocks, is a type of music that's always been a great underground secret in countries like the UK, loved fervently by a small devoted fanbase without ever really crossing over into the mainstream. I s'pose it's no coincidence that I got into them just as I was discovering similar lost legends like Hanoi and the Lords of the New Church and my music taste was well and truly starting to wander down the glam-punk path that's informed a lot of my listening in the 15-20 years since (although you could probably argue that the seeds for that were sown all the way back to my early encounters with the Dogs D'Amour on the ITV Chart Show as an 11-year-old). Either way though, I'd heartily recommend all four of the group's albums - for proper wrong side of the tracks real deal scummy rock 'n' rollers, there are few who can match 'em.