You can feel the kinetic friction of two decades of shared instinct the moment Hallaballoo launches into their latest album, “Gravity”. The Minneapolis collective James Douglas Gross, Robert Lee, Al Berg, Kyle Primus, David Kittelson, Aaron Short, Max LaRock, Travis Johnston, and Mike Wolfram has long favored living on the outer fringes of the jam-band cosmos. Here, they turn in-studio uncertainty into sharp, melodic architecture, trusting communal intuition rather than a rigid rulebook.
The ride is wonderfully erratic. “Just Sit Back” sets the stage with gritty alt-country garage twang, pairing our collective appetite for catastrophic headlines with an energetic, darkly cynical shrug. That nervous momentum boils over in “Inches Away,” an anxious portrait of highway burnout pushed forward by a driving, mechanical cadence that teeters on total exhaustion, while the pop-punk bite of “Undercover Bitch” unspools a stealthy operative tale over kinetic chord progressions. When the band wants to dig into abrasive territory, they lean all the way in; “Dirty Fingers” crashes forward like an unapologetic garage mantra celebrating muck and unpolished grit.
Yet the record never stays trapped in the mud. In a fascinating swerve, “It Isn’t Easy” drifts into breezy yacht rock and smooth jazz-pop, letting an expressive solo melodic line dance across syncopated chord stabs while candidly parsing how exhausting a complicated personality can be. The road-worn heartland stride of “Perfect Midnight” honors the solitary sacrifices of the touring circuit with clear, driving perseverance, while “Ain’t No Big Wup” greets life’s daily stumbles with a rowdy, cowpunk grin.
Everything ultimately pulls toward the title cut, “Gravity”. Subdued arpeggios give way to an explosive wall of sound and an expressive, bending climax, turning emotional release into pure sonic lift. That catharsis carries cleanly into the vibrant, expansive chord layers of “Starry Skies,” shedding old baggage with wide-open clarity.
When a room full of longtime collaborators possesses this caliber of mutual faith, they don’t bother asking for directions they just cut the anchors loose. What happens when letting yourself fall is the only way to genuinely take flight?
