Half Hearted Hero

If you’re anything like me, you probably started the day by recognizing that the start of a new work week had indeed arrived and then immediately began shaking your fists at the sky in anger. Monday is rarely anyone’s favorite day, and from what I have seen firsthand it feels safe to say it’s the one day of the week some people outright hate. I guess to them the arrival of the work week symbolizes the end of their quote/unquote freedom, and as a result they head into the office/factory/restaurant/store with a negative outlook already on their mind. This leads to bad attitudes, which only makes the experience of being at work worse, and for some reason it also seems to make time slow to a crawl. We’re not about that life, and we hope this post can do the same you that the song contained within it did for us.

I don’t know whether it’s harder to succeed in music by leveraging the same tempos and chord progressions every major artist has used for the last half century or by finding a sound that is unique to you and pushing it out into the world, but they both have their drawbacks. On the one hand, building on the blueprints of former greats gives you the knowledge that at least part of your creation will work with audiences, but it also means you will lead a career riddled with critical comparisons to other, possibly far bigger, names for as long as you are in music. On the other hand, creating a sound from scratch requires you to convince people whatever you have developed is worth their time, and that struggle will never end. You can write the greatest song known to mankind, but unless you can convince those in radio, licensing, and major labels to give a damn your career will plateau long before those who pursue a far more traditional and commercial path to musical success. 

Massachusetts quintet Half Hearted Hero is digging deep on their new album, Isn’t Real. Musically, you could draw lines to bands like Polar Bear Club, Living With Lions, Shook Ones and Carpenter—groups whose entire careers have been built on powerful, occasionally raspy vocals atop melodic punk songs heavily influenced by emo and hardcore with lyrics that are pulled directly from the heart and…

Depending on where you live it may be hard to tell, but summer is fast-approaching, and with the rising temperatures comes an avalanche of new music competing for your attention and blog coverage. We cannot and should not tell you how to run your blog, but if you’re the kind of writer looking for the best of the best to share with your audiences then we know of a few upcoming releases you should definitely keep your eye on. These records criss-cross genres, but each one adds something special to the global music community that we believe is worthy of coverage.

Also, just so you don’t start believing we claim to have final say over everything that is good or bad, please know we are always in the market for new discoveries ourselves. It’s rare that more than a day or two passes without someone pitching us new music, and we do our best to hear everything that arrives in our inbox. If you know of a great record on the horizon that is not mentioned in the list below, please comment and add your suggestion. We will definitely make time to listen, and who knows? Maybe you will be responsible for kickstarting the development of future blog content down the line.

Anyways, here are our picks for the must hear albums of May 2016: