Halfway’s ninth studio album, The Styx, digs deep into the places, and people, rarely visited in rock music.
These are songs set among the rivers, estuaries and massive out-tides of Central Queensland. The Styx isn’t the one of Greek mythology but the river near the fishing village Stanage Bay, a place of deep natural beauty and danger. The band’s John Busby spent time there as a child, camping out on fishing trips with his father.
There is nothing mythic about these stories of love, lust, longing and leaving, which feel as real as an errant fishhook deep into flesh. Brothers George and Lennie are the kind of hard-bitten characters who might be found in stories by John Steinbeck or Richard Flanagan, battling the elements and themselves and always with an eye out for the fishing inspectors. Just before daylight Lennie goes to check the nets. He doesn’t return..
The album is the first recorded by the band themselves, mixed by Mark Nevers (Calexico, Lambchop, and producer of the band’s The Golden Halfway Record and Rain Lover albums) at his South Carolina studio.
The Styx features the return to the fold of band co-founder Chris Dale after a six-year absence, and contributions from guests including Chris Abrahams (The Necks, Midnight Oil) and Adele Pickvance (The Go-Betweens).
Noel Mengel