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Mar 15, 2016 HÆLOS By Zach Hollwedel

Full Circle, the debut album from London-based trio, HÆLOS, is a lake at nighttime—you have no way of knowing how deep it is until you wade in. Once you plunge beneath the warm water’s surface, you realize this is a world you have rarely experienced before. Collectively, Lotti Benardout, Arthur Delaney, and Dom Goldsmith, all of whom share vocals throughout the album, craft a therapeutic, introspective, absorbing 50 minutes of music intended to be shared among one’s closest friends and significant others. It is a nocturnal album, perfectly designed to accompany—or perhaps inspire—those most intimate of moments, which occur in the quietest and most wee hours of the night. Full Circle is electronic pop dance music of its own ilk, at once welcomingly familiar and completely unique, and best played after the bar, after the subway ride home. It is living room swaying music at its absolute best.

Picture your closest compatriots sitting on the couch in your living room, pouring drinks, coming down off a night on the town, and sharing the details of their lives reserved only for those to whom they are closest. One of them gets up and turns on either “Cloud Nine” or “Oracle”—or any of Full Circle‘s 11 tracks—and you feel compelled to dance, drink in hand, free to experience the moment. That’s what HÆLOS’ intent is with Full Circle, and the trio succeeds wildly. It is an achievement in finding beauty in the mundane and truth in the unspoken. In the past, Delaney, who wrote the majority of the lyrics for the album, has spoken of “a shared human experience,” namely that “as much as we try to run away from feelings,” they follow us wherever we go. Full Circle goes beyond embracing that notion; it welcomes those feelings, it asks us to experience them in the company of others. And it helps us do so beautifully. (www.haelos.com)

Author rating: 7/10