Fucking hell, they actually did it.
In late 2022, Hallelujah the Hills announced an absolutely ludicrous idea: DECK. A 52 song project, with each song representing a playing card in a traditional… well… deck… Although it was announced in 2022, Ryan H. Walsh said that it was an idea that he first thought up the concept 20 years earlier, likely as some nonsense pie in the sky fantasy that would never likely be completed. It would be made up of four thirteen song albums, one for each suit. The diamonds suit would be the band’s a proper studio follow up to 2020’s ‘I’m You’ – the real diamonds in the rough. The club deck would be more punky and direct – clubbing you over the head, if you will. The hearts deck would be more slowed down and acoustic sad boi songs – that hit the listener straight in the heart…s. And then the deck of spades would be the project’s more experimental and looser songs – songs that… call a spade a spade…? Are influenced by David Spade…? Ah! A spade spade! For digging! So the spade suit would be the band digging into their creativity to express themselves more freely? Yeah, think that’s it.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter, this whole idea’s a fucking disaster.
That original post from 2022 said the record would take “a year and a half”. Yeah, alright mate, lol. I even gently mocked the band when Alone In Love was featured on my best songs of 2024, lolling a bit at how the record was advertised at that point as “coming out later in 2024”. We by then in January 2025.
But here it is. Literally in my hands, as I paid for the full, literal deck of cards with each song/card also getting its own custom artwork. How did a project this ambitious not take the the rest of the bandmembers’ fucking lives?? Why didn’t ‘DECK’ find Ryan H. Walsh as a 70 year old man in the year 2050 picking half eaten gherkins out of his beard and wearing tissue boxes for shoes as he still furiously tries to work out the synth part of Some Rest for the Wicked at 3am in the morning?? Yet here it is less than three years after being announced?? Yet here it is: 54 songs, three hours and 35 minutes, four suits and two jokers.
Since the project’s conception, the band have long suggested that the listener pulls 13 random cards from the deck, put their corresponding songs in the order you pulled the cards, and have their own unique version of the record that might function like an audio-tarot-card-reading. So let’s fucking do that, yeah?? This is all a legitimate pull, I promise.
Track 1: A Lot of Super Weird Stuff Went Down Right Before I Met You (Jack of Spades)
It’s a feeling I get when your near like an explorer near a wild frontier
Throw away my atlas, head north till I discover your key
And while the jury deliberates we joke about if this should count as a date
The defendant without defenses, truly open for the first time
OK, so this is an early example of why you perhaps shouldn’t treat those early explainer by the band as to what the suits would represent as gospel, as here’s A Lot of Super Weird Stuff Went Down Right Before I Met You coming toward the end of the ‘experimental’ clubs suite, and yet such an achingly gorgeous song that the way it breaks my heart very much suggests it’s in the wrong place. What are you doing here? He even sings “Well, I’ve got a big heart” for God’s sake!
But if ‘DECK’s songs were so rigidly adherent to the deck they’re in, then the project wouldn’t work as the random album generator that it’s partially designed to be, as they wouldn’t all flow into and compliment each other as they need to. And I ain’t gonna complain considering A Lot of Weird… is a beautiful song that you’d want on most albums.
As an opening track though?? I dunno. But it may end up perfectly complementing the rest of the record, let’s see.
Track 2: This is a Song (Jack of Diamonds)
Dirt to dust / hammers and hatchets
And this is a song
Country codes and flower based tombstones
And this is a song
What you gonna tell em back home?
Fucking all the Jacks over here. Can I get three in a row.
Firstly, is that a flipping Joe Biden sample at the start?? I might have to ask Ryan H. Walsh on Twitter, because the potential implications of meaning there are endless!
As oppose to Track 1, This Is a Song seems to fit very well into the suite’s stated goals: it’s very much a continuation of ‘I’m You’s anthemic, heavily instrumented, Hold Steady influenced, emotional rock. Emotional rock? So… emo…? Sure, if you like.
It’s a good second track to the album, upping the pace slightly and introducing far more musical elements that often make up the band’s sound. Oh, and fucking Seth Manchester is on backing vocals, incredibly.
Track 3: I’ll Get Over It (3 of Hearts)
Something’s in the breeze here
Got me on knees here
Desperate on a Sunday night
All the ghosts of my past
Pourin’ drinks til they’re trashed
To refrain wouldn’t be polite
I’ll get over it, if I can get out from under it
OK! This completely new album that likely has never been created before (though I guess one in 635,013,559,600 isn’t technically impossible…) really picks up the pace with track 3. A boisterous, sub three minute stomper complete with hand claps. It’s a decent little song, though absolutely an album track. But this album needs those as well! Probably the weakest song so far, but still adds to the album’s flow.
Track 4: The Feeling is Mine (6 of Spades)
The feeling is mine
Won’t leave it behind
Watching it grow
And letting it know
It can’t be confined
The feeling is mine
The fourth track on any album is often a good spot to have a bit of an early album wig out, and The Feeling is Mine is an absolutely riotous punk fueled psyche explosion that manages to build on the energy of the already pretty fucking energetic Track 3. This album really needs to chill out a bit now.
Track 5: Rebuilding Year (4 of Diamonds)
What are you doing here?
Watch my cool just disappear
You’ll have to pardon my appearance
Cuz it’s a re-building year
The record’s first truly great song. I’m not sure I’d choose it as the album’s lead single, but maybe it’s second or third. Ezra Furman takes lead vocals on a classic HtH sounding song concerning shirking responsibility for your own failure, and designating every issue you have to be “Next year’s problem”. Seriously, I assumed me writing about this laughably overambitious project was going to be 2030’s problem to be honest.
It’s also perfectly sequenced, if I do say so myself: not completely killing the vibes and energy built up over the previous three tracks, but turning that inwards without losing the tempo much.
Track 6: FugaziBlackHoleMirage (7 of Clubs)
I been making my coffee strong
I guess it’s gotta be 6AM somewhere
They call me Kid Ballad, I’m in the public domain
But the milky way is full of the mediocreYou feeling nervous, or what?
Oh it’s a fugazi, it’s black hole, it’s a mirage
I knew that you knew but I wanted to know if I took it too far
Fucking hell, this album’s banging! Definitely one for The Clubs. Not so much the clubs though, as this is the first card from that suite. After the slight reprieve of Ezra Furman’s misery, we’re right back to high tempo rock. High tempo rock that I have no idea what it’s about.
Honestly, before I heard this song in June or whatever, I didn’t realise that ‘fugazi’ had any meaning beyond the legendary Washington post-hardcore band, so thanks a lot J.H. Walsh et al for inspiring me to learn that it also means “false, bogus, inauthentic“. Does that make the lyrics make any more sense? I mean… I dunno… everything he says is bogus…? So all the lyrics are actually bullshit nonsense…? That does help, actually, thanks.
Track 7: I Remember This (King of Clubs)
If I recall it’s not polite
To keep them waiting half the night
You’ve either got it or you don’t
And if you don’t well just go home
OK, so, yeah, this album is actually designed to vinyl LP first and foremost, OK? So I Remember This would actually be the closing song for side one. In that context, you can understand why there’s a feeling of finality about it, or at least of wrapping things up before that all important second half.
It’s… a bit of a nothing song, to be honest. The most forgettable track on side one, and the band on autopilot a bit.
Track 8: Hits Get Hard (9 of Spades)
While I tally all the damage incurred
No, you haven’t misheard
I’ll never quit when the hits get hard
Oh! My! Soul! Oh!
This time I’ll break every rule
And whether I win or lose
I’ll never quit when the hits get hard
Oh! My! Soul! Oh!
Boom! What a way to open side two! And… potentially… the lead single…? For me to calls to mind Richard III by Supergrass a little, and like that classic it would be a great first single despite its abrasive tone and the fact that it isn’t completely representative of the rest of the record. It’s a bit of a monster and would be a fucking huge hit on rock radio, trust me.
However, Richard III has a “WHOO!”. Hits Get Hard doesn’t have a “WHOO!”. That’s the main reason for my reticence.
Track 9: Places, Everybody (King of Spades)
Don’t stop: Cue the jugglers
Give ’em burlesque
Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry
The escape act gets chained up
Dropped in water
and then time stands still
Places, everybody
Let’s do this one more time
The crowds don’t come like they used to
And then the talkies took our lines
So, places, everybody
Oooh, definitely the fourth single. Most people have bought this album already, but the record company is insisting that 16 million records isn’t enough, so this delightful uptempo waltz should persuade the last remaining Mondeo Men to part with their cash.
Track 10: Burn this Atlas Down (2 of Clubs)
I never been to Stockholm but I’ve enjoyed its syndrome
Never messed with Texas but I fucked “the state”
Resist as you might, this is the time of your life
A New York minute could last for an eternity
Yeah, really liking how side two is coming together. I considered that maybe this should be the fourth single, but then I thought that Burn This Atlas Down is definitely destined to by the Let Down deep cut album track that fans always tell each other is underrated.
It contains the sort of cutesy, almost punning lyrics that Ryan H. Walsh is fond of writing every now and again that I am definitely not a fan of, but it’s still a pretty gorgeous piece of music that improved further by the addition of strings (string plural? There’s only one viola credited. But violas have a number of strings, don’t they? And guitars have strings. The band were probably wearing shoes with laces, they’re technically string. Strings of cotton likely made many of their clothes. I’m standing by my pluralisation. Anyway, Craig Finn is here!).
Track 11: I Got Out of This World Alive (7 of Spades)
Instead of skin there’s geometry
Don’t let the world get in front of me
Kicking hours into twilight rooms
Consuming nothin’ but sonic booms.
There’s a monster in my movie
The kind of creature you aint ever seen
No! No! No! No!
Well, surprise, surprise
You won’t believe your eyes
I made it out of this world alive
They said I couldn’t so I had to try
They said the only way out’s to die
But I got out of this world alive
Fucking yes! The late record lighter waving epic, the nearly six minute slow burner that’s sure to become a classic at the band’s shows. Featuring on lead vocals… David Bowie…?
Rob Johanson, apparently, who I believe was a member of Ryan H. Walsh’s previous band The Stairs. I’m not sure he took on vocal duties too frequently with that band (probably for legal reasons, because it really is uncanny sometimes) and left after the band’s debut album. This really is a classic ‘Track 12’ though, all this album needs to do now is ace the landing with its final two tracks.
Track 12: Crush All Night (5 of Clubs)
Bang on brightly, the true flag
Our motto “Go Bold”
Elevate me up to an angel
The dangers well knownBless every single winged-mountain-guide
The lucky end up on the other side
If it all comes down to the wire
Let my veins be wires and crush all night
Ooooooooooooooh? Maybe this should be the first single? Honestly, those college radio stations will eat this the fuck up, trust me.
After the almost solemn soul searching of Track 11, Crush All Night is an incredible pulsing shot of pure garage rock energy just before the album comes to a close. Perhaps you need the other 53 songs to convince you, but trust me when I say that it takes very smart people to make rock music this brilliantly dumb.
OK, how do we close this classic album?
Track 13: Camouflage Band-Aid (3 of Clubs)
I fuck pray love
I push and shove
Then my fortune reads:
“You know I undermine my purpose
Like a camouflage band-aid”
Erm… it ends oddly, to be honest. One of the least remarkable punky rock songs in the whole of ‘DECK’, and an absolutely bizarre choice to end this 13 track album. What were the band thinking when they elected to end this particular record with this?? I don’t even know what a ‘camouflage band-aid’ is meant to represent? Support that you can’t see? But in the lyrics the band-aid is likened to things undermining their purpose and being useless? Or is the idea that you should always want people to see your wounds? Odd.
In Conclusion
A very decent album with some real highlights, undermined by a handful of disposable tracks, an odd choice for opener that seems to be introducing a different album, and an insane choice for closing that album. All in all though, a very good effort. Oh, and you can tell I legitimately pulled those cards at random because there’s no way I would have chosen some of those songs!
B-
For ‘DECK’ as a whole? Mate, it’s difficult to look past the sheer moxie of thinking that the band could even pull this off. It’s (obviously! Come on!) not a perfect set of 54 stone cold classics – the better songs could have used a bit more production sheen, and the weaker songs consider a bit of an NPR ‘All Things Considered’ attitude – but they fucking did it! ‘DECK’ can be considered nothing less than an absolute success, and the only real feeling of disappointment is that more artists aren’t as willing to take insane risks with their music as these six working musicians from Boston with barely a comparative pot to piss in.
2022 #13, 2020 #59 (yeah, that 2022 entry was a rerelease so they’ve actually gone up +51 since their last album!!)
This is actually the first album without a critics’ score, so I’ve had to go to the dreaded users. Who actually rate it very well! Actually… That’s based on one user… Mattima, whoever you are, you’re the basis of this entire score… Oh, and it’s a score for ‘Hearts’ rather than the full ‘DECK’…
Mate, it’s a mess, I know. I’m sorry.
Necessary Evil 