ALBUM REVIEW: Half Glow – The Penske File
After five years, Burlington, Ontario pop-punk outfit THE PENSKE FILE are back with their fourth studio album Half Glow. Having gone through several versions thanks to the delay brought on by the pandemic, the record focuses on looking at the different sides of life we all go through, good or bad, and overall gives off a sense of hope even when things are crumbling around us. And all through the medium of anthemic rock songs that simply put you in the best mood.
From the moment the album begins with opening track Bad Dreams, which starts out with rather dreamlike guitar strumming that shifts into a catchy pop-rock song, the listener is immediately offered feelings of comfort. Throughout the album you can’t help but feel calm and happy as the songs have a nice familiar feel that allows you experience the nostalgia of being in your teens again. This is the type of record you could put on in a terrible mood and by the end you’ll find yourself happy from the never-ending dopamine offered by each track. Even when the lyrical content focuses more on serious topics, you can’t help but feel hopeful that everything will be ok in the end. And of course, you can’t help but dance along.
Whether it’s the throwback to the 60s as heard in recent single Chorus Girl, or feeling like you’ve been placed in the montage part of a coming of age film during Wolves Gather, or just the pure bliss and bounciness of the likes of Will We Ever Know, We’re Both Alive and Hurricane Head – you could easily list any song in this category – there’s something that offers a form of escape from all the worries one may have.
Everything is perfectly summed up once the band get to Lovers After Midnight, a nearly seven-minute-long track that is split in half to allow the listener to look at the two contrasting moods represented on the record. In the first half things are more melancholic with lyrics covering the fear of growing old and having to find a way to live in this world, something that makes you sit there and have an existential crisis. But then suddenly everything changes as the song turns into a fast pop-punk track that removes all feelings of doubt and replaces them with pure joy and the need to get up and dance. As said, it’s a lovely summary to conclude the album.
Half Glow is an album whose main purpose is to make you feel happy; it reminds you of everything positive in your life, and, honestly, feels like a hug from a friend telling you that things will be fine in the end. It’s the type of dopamine hit that everyone deserves to feel.
Rating: 8/10
Half Glow is out now via Stomp Records.
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