Montreal’s Half Moon Run return today with the first new music for 2023 with a propulsive, affirming sonic journey with new song, “You Can Let Go” out today on the band’s new label, BMG.
“In the back of my mind was a beautiful, truthful shouting,” says one of the group’s three singers, songwriters + multi instrumentalists, Devo
The song’s verses recall the inducing cardiac panic of the group’s earliest hits, at least until the fever breaks and the chorus transcends into the sublime harmonies they have become universally known for. Portielje continues, “A tumultuous, transformative journey through the dark places of the mind towards, hopefully, the light.”
It’s no wonder transformation and self-reflection is on their minds. Since Half Moon Run’s last album, A Blemish in the Great Light (Glassnote/Universal, 2019), there’s been a global pandemic and a sea-change in the live music industry. Meanwhile, the band’s put out three releases—two EPs and a collection of reworked “isolation versions” of older songs.
They netted two Juno Awards both for ‘Adult Alternative Album of the Year’ in 2020 for A Blemish in the Great Light, and again in 2022 for their EP Inwards & Onwards. In 2021 they were nominated for ‘Group of the Year’ and also in 2016 for ‘Breakthrough Group.’ Half Moon Run also saw their fourth member, multi-instrumentalist Isaac Symonds, depart the band to move out West over these past years of change. The remaining trio— Devon Portielje, Conner Molander, and Dylan Phillips—are also the band’s founding trio and the foundation moving forward. The new track, was produced by Conner Seidel at Treehouse Studio. The lyric video was directed by Alex Tomlinson.