Half Moon Run - 'You Can Let Go'
The Canadian Half Moon Run release their new single, ‘You Can Let Go’ ahead of their European tour in September.
As one of Canada’s most successful bands and have had a successful career from the nominations in 2016 for the ‘Breakthrough Group.’ And then in 2021 they were nominated for ‘Group of the Year’. They’ve nettled two Juno Awards (the Canadian Brits) both for the ‘Adult Alternative Album of the Year’ in 2020 for ‘A Blemish in the Great Light’ and again in 2022 for their EP, ‘Inwards & Onwards’. Unfortunately, Half Moon Run saw their fourth member, multi-instrumentalist Isaac Symonds, depart from the group to move out West. The remaining trio; guitarist Devon Portielje, guitarist Conner Molander and acoustic drummer Dylan Philips.
Through the past few years Half Moon Run has been kept from doing what they indisputably excel at; touring, which has become synonymous with the band’s name, fame, global accolades and dedicated audiences they have single-handedly built since they began internationally touring their 2012 debut album, ‘Dark Eyes’. In the latter half of 2022, they did play a select few dates, which unsurprisingly is some of their most successful shows yet. There were over 45,000 people on the Plains of Abraham for the final night of the ‘Festival d’été de Québec’; and ADISQ awarded the band another Félix (their fifth) for ‘Best Anglophone Show of 2022’.
Before the Montreal band head to the UK in September as a part of their headline European tour. Half Moon Run return with their first new music of 2023, with a propulsive, affirming sonic journey with new single, ‘You Can Let Go’ on the band’s new label BMG. With the new track produced by Conner Seidel at Treehouse Studio and the lyric video was directed by Alex Tomlinson. And for those who know the constant creative prolific nature of Half Moon Run, will know once there is a new song, there is bound to be many more. As Portielje hints, “All I can say is that our last EP was looking inwards and moving onwards, and now we’re maybe, looking upwards,”
‘You Can Let Go’ verses recall the inducing cardiac panic of the group’s earliest hits, until the fever breaks and the chorus transcends into the sublime harmonies, they are renowned for. One of the three singers, and guitarist Portielje says that in the back of his mind it was a beautiful, truthful shouting and he continues to state that, “A tumultuous, transformative journey through the dark places of the mind towards, hopefully, the light.”
It is no wonder that transformation and self-reflection is on Half Moon Run’s minds, as since their 2019 ‘A Blemish in the Green Light’ there has been a global pandemic and a sea-change in the live music industry. Meanwhile, the band put out three releases: their 2020 ‘The Covideo Sessions’ album of reworked, ‘isolated versions’ of older songs, their 2020 ‘Seasons of Change’ EP and lastly their 2021 ‘Inwards & Onwards’ EP.
Words by Bethany Simms
