Emma Hallows – Anchors Up! (EP)
The other night, tristesse came pouncing on me at my doorstep and 
almost knocked me off my feet. The unromantic kind, not that bittersweet, life-rebooting experience I’d always imagined poets would feed on. Tristesse the road sign, making me feel a trespasser where I should have felt a smoke-stained antique. I left seeking shelter in a tavern nearby, a place I commonly refer to as “The Pub”, in the more intimate hours after third round even as “My Pub”. I found it crowded with strangers, swaying and softly bobbing their heads to the songs of a young she-singer. The girl sold home-recorded tapes from the lip of the stage afterwards. She styled herself a punk-slash-folk-artist, and I should have taken the hint, meaning I should have refrained from calling her a singer-slash-songwriter.
I didn’t get my tape for free that night. Instead of a “Make it a good one” I got a “Don’t bother to review my record.”
That girl wasn’t Emma Hallows. None of the four tracks on Anchors Up! could ever tempt me to name her a singer-slash-songwriter. Too raw, too fierce is Emma’s music, both in regard to her voice and the acoustic guitar supporting it. Bobbing your head softly to songs like “I’ll remember you as a liar & a waste of time”? Good luck with that. Emma is punk and folk. No tristesse here, only real life between the lines. No emotional refuge, but an emotional face-off.
Of the four tracks on the EP, the title song’s a definite highlight. There’s the handclapping-part with the decent Against-Me!-touch, there’s the unexpected climax catching you unawares. However, the main quality of the song lies in the balance between story-telling and conveying a message. That quality is sometimes lacking on the other tracks. Otherwise, Anchors Up! is close to flawless a debut. We better keep an ear or two on punk-slash-folk-artist Emma Hallows.
LD
Find out more about her and her music here: Emma Hallows
