Hällas is a Swedish retro-progressive band with dashes of hard rock and psychedelia – albeit the 1970s version of these genres. Their sound and inspirations are firmly steeped in that decade, and their music videos also make a good effort of emulating that 1970s retro style.
The band would probably be well chuffed to learn that I actually thought I had come across an older band when I first happened upon one of their music videos with minimal knowledge of them.
If you visit their web site (hallasband.com), which I promptly did to learn more about this orchestra, you will find slim pickings in terms of information about them. There is a link to their Facebook and Instagram, a band shop, booking info, and a Spotify widget. No biography, no discography, nothing about who they are, their music, or any info about the concepts they embroider their lyrics in.
You’re left wondering. Who are these guys? What’s their story? What is their music all about? You won’t find out on their pages. It almost becomes yet another way of emulating the 1970s, when information was harder to come by and we often did not know much more about a band than what was printed in the sleeve notes. If we were lucky, some publication might interview the band or write about them. Sometimes, but far from always, those write-ups could even be informative.
We are used to information being more readily available – and indeed it is out there, if well hid and fragmented.
The story of Hällas started in the Swedish town of Jönköping in 2011, when Tommy Alexandersson (bass, vocals) and a friend met Kasper Eriksson (drums) at a local bar. They played together for a bit, but when Kasper moved to Linköping the following year the band was put on hold. In Linköping, Kasper met Alexander Moraitis (guitar), and when Tommy also moved base there in 2014 and Alexander’s childhood friend Marcus Petterson (guitar) joined the band, that became the first version of Hällas.
Their first eponymous EP was recorded and released in 2015. The band worked out of Treasuresound Studio with Nicklas Malmqvist assisting with production and engineering.
Malmqvist also added synth and organ parts to the songs, and with that something clicked. This was the sound the band had been looking for. They knew they could develop the music much further with him on board, and fortunately he accepted their offer to join. The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
The story is as grand and epic as the music, and an EP was never going to be enough to get it all in. Instead the EP marks the start of the story – the background and prologue, if you will. The band intended to continue the story on the coming album, very much following the 1970s prog rock notion of the concept album.
After a tour to break in the new and complete line-up, they started work on their first full-length album. Excerpts From A Future Past was released on 13 October 2017.
The music is more ambitious than the EP both musically and lyrically, and in continuing the 1970s ethos, it is a concept album set in the middle ages of an alternate universe.
The main character is Hällas – an old knight templar who has started doubting his faith. On the EP we learn about his background and see him starting to search for the meaning of life.
On Excerpts, he meets a soothsayer who possesses powers of the universe, which takes his search and adventures to new levels. The band encourages people to listen and make their own interpretations, so we’ll leave it at that.
The album’s lead-off track Astral Seer is a good representation, opening as it does with a moody guitar piece accompanied by church bells – before tearing into a Thin Lizzy-inspired riff and twin guitar section. There is an epic flair to it as the song builds, at times reminding me of the breakdowns in Deep Purple’s ultimate classic ‘Child In Time’.
The break-out hit was however a different song. As the band toured their debut album, audiences all over Europe started singing along to “Star Rider” more than any other song. It had an interesting birth, as this very poppy song was created during a rehearsal during the early days as a laugh. Later on, Alexandersson sent the song to Malmqvist for fun. He took it seriously and went to work on the idea, making it into a full demo. He added a disco beat, some catchy guitar lines, and refined the pop sensibility that the song inherently had.
The band had never intended to do anything with the track, but when they heard what Malmqvist had done they started wondering if they should take the plunge and include it. Fortunately they did, and the huge response from their audiences resulted in a music video being made.
Their second album Conundrum is set to be released on 31 January 2020, and it promises to take several steps onward. The concept continues the story from the first two releases, with the band saying this completes the trilogy.
The first single/video Tear of A Traitor seem to move the story into cosmos this time, with images of both Hällas the knight templar and the soothsayer. while also retaining and developing elements of the story from the first album. A musical slice of 1970s-style science-fiction sounds enticing.
They are called Hällas, and in 2020 their journey will take off to the next level.
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