All 54 Songs on 2025’s Most Insane Achievement Listed in Order of Awesomeness
OK! I’m actually getting round to this! I know I’ve promised to write this post several times but, kid, I make a lot of promises on this blog, they’re practically meaningless. Your Mum can relate, mate, trust me, now pipe down and read the rest of this post.
Boston’s* Hallelujah the Hills (HtH) first announced their plan to released ‘DECK’ in late 2022. By that point, HtH were fifteen years into a recording career that had produced seven studio records of that were all varying degrees of extremely decent to incredibly great. The band were hardly strangers to crazy ambitions and thinking outside the box: they had released albums inspired by 19th century spiritualist scammers; albums that were instrumental scores to a book about the importance of 1968 written by frontperson Ryan H. Walsh; and they once even discovered, on April 1st 2022, field recordings of clairvoyants receiving messages that proved the paranormal origins of many of The Beatles’ songs. I guess that last one isn’t really proof of the band’s eclectic ambitions, more their good luck in unearthing these 1958 recordings, but I still felt it was worth mentioning. They’d never done anything close to as ambitious as ‘DECK’ before though. Few artists have.
(that’s Boston, Massachusetts, USA, not Boston in Lincolnshire, just East of Nottingham. Just wanted to make that clear early in case you were confused by the rest of the article not making any jokes about Fred Maddison or wry references to St Botolph’s Church)
In an idea that frontperson Walsh apparently had in mind for decades, the project would be called ‘DECK’ because it represented a deck of cards. There’d be fifty two cards. Each card would be a song. There’d be a ‘suit’ of thirteen songs in the ‘Diamonds‘ album (“a proper studio follow up to ‘I’m You’“); thirteen songs in the ‘Clubs‘ album (“lo-fi faster, punkier, dirtier songs”); thirteen songs in the ‘Hearts‘ album (“a sparser, mostly acoustic, yet carefully orchestrated, album full of weepers”); and thirteen songs in the ‘Spades‘ album (“a free-form, experimental record”). All four ‘suits’ would be released on the same day and collectively form the 52 track ‘DECK’ project. The listener would “Be able to pull 13 random cards, put their corresponding songs in the order you pulled the cards, and voila, you have your own unique version of the record that might function like an audio-tarot-card-reading“. It was, obviously, an hilariously overambitious folly that would destroy either the entire band, their collective mental health, or – most likely – both. It’s the kind of shit you’d hear sent Brian Wilson mad in Walsh’s beloved 1968. It’s the kind of thing you’d read about being an early plan for ‘Chinese Democracy‘ that finally convinced Slash that Axl Rose was beyond the point of no return. When Charles Manson first met with Phil Kaufman to explore the possibilities of releasing music, he probably described the ‘DECK’ project. The idea of this project is the rantings of a madman. I immediately begun to be concerned about the band’s collective cocaine consumption.
Yet, little over two and a half years later, ‘DECK‘ was actually fucking released. Four decks and two jokers, 54 full, complete, artistically viable and absolutely distinct songs of remarkable quality. Obviously, I owe it to the world professionally to rank them. How hard can that be? I did it with Magnetic Fields’ ‘50 Song Memoir‘, so this will only be, like, four songs more difficult, right?
One difficulty is that there, seriously, aren’t any bad songs on this record. My #54/bottom song is 95% there because of spite. There are, however, a number of songs that I’d probably consider varying levels of ‘meh’, and the bottom of the list will largely be made up of tracks that I found myself suspecting may only exist to fill out the required numbers. But it’s a credit to the project that I can’t point to one song that I can say for sure is only there to ensure the band reached that all important number of cards – there’s no Punk Rock Love or Experimental Music Love equivalent – and I can easily accept that many songs that I reacted less to may well be your favourite. Buy the album, listen to it, be a better person for once in your fucking life.
And – although I have obviously converted this list into both a Spotify and YouTube playlist – ‘DECK’ isn’t supposed to be listened to in a three and a half hour musical quadrathlon: each of the four suits is a complete and coherent record that works completely on its own terms, or you can take the band’s advice and create your own 13 track album randomly and see what record you get. It’s not a quadruple album, it’s…
It’s…
It’s fucking, ‘DECK’, mate, I don’t know what else to tell you.
54 Superglued to You (8 of Diamonds)
I knew this story about two people
And their love was overwhelming
It’s was a ‘will they won’t they…destroy each other?’—kind of deal
Yeah, so this song is bottom out of spite, mostly. A re-recording of a great, punchy, rollicking 2022 HtH single, but instead now slowed down, chilled out and featuring alt-country artist Lydia Loveless on guest vocals. I loved the original’s impassioned speed and volume, and so resent it being needlessly untoothed for the record. It’s not even a case of an older song being cynically reworked just to fill out the numbers – the original Superglued to You was released as a single trailing ‘DECK’ along with a couple of other songs that also feature on the project largely unchanged. Just… why?? I can understand that you’re stoked to have Ms Loveless along for the ride, but you’ve literally got 51 other (non joker) options, why mess with something that didn’t need changing?!
Anyway, something has to finish bottom, right?
Oh, phantom ring, I feel your touch
Though your symbolism is a little much
Now the devil may care but I loved her the most
This metal ghost, beyond reproach
A perfectly good song, with some beautiful instrumentation, that just strikes me as a little slight despite the addition of violas, violins and trumpets.
52 You Can Never Go Home (9 of Hearts)
All you wanna do is start again
But can you really start again?
Race around the whole world searching for a new kind of existence
But you’re still “you” in the end
Very sweet, very beautiful, but perhaps one of the few songs on ‘DECK’ that I could possible, maybe, potentialy, in one of my weaker moments, conceivably describe as ‘filler’.
51 Divine Interventions (3 of Spades)
I thought I missed your exodus but now I know your name
Shadows on the razor’s edge, blizzards on the brain
“Fragments of a Rainy Season,” please don’t act so tame
Drag me through your waking dreams, lit by open flames
Now, I would balk at the idea of ever calling any Hallelujah the Hills song a ‘basic bitch’. Perish the thought!
However, if I was ever going to call one that – which I never would! – it would likely be this fun but inconsequential garage rocker
50 My Past Is Your Futurism (8 of Clubs)
I’m alone
Even in the crowded rooms of the time travel scene
“Where is home?”
You ask me like I’d even know, it’s been far too long
As great a lyricist as Walsh is, I do occasionally suspect them of maybe thinking of a cool sounding line or bit of wordplay and then extrapolating the rest of the lyrics from that one idea. And My Past Is Your Futurism is the one song on ‘DECK’ that really sounds like the title came to them at 2am in the morning and the other ten or so lines were just scribbled out while taking a dump. Probably working through the constipation that the intense cocaine binge necessary for the creation of ‘DECK’ would have likely caused.
Features Devin Davis on vocals, who Wikipedia tells me is a forward for Koroivos Amaliadas of the Greek A2 Elite League. I can’t speak for their basketball skills, but their singing’s pretty good here.
49 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”
I… just…
I don’t understand the simile!! How is a ‘camouflage Band-Aid’ useless?? I can contextually understand that a plaster that’s camouflaged would be like a chocolate teapot or a marzipan dildo, but why? Is the main point of a plaster that you’re supposed to be able to see it?? How does having it camouflage (against the skin?? Against the wound??) undermine its purpose??
Aside from this confusion though, it’s a pretty standard but effective little rocker.
When the devil you know
Starts to move way too slow
There’s always a new one to incorporate
If you think no one knows
About the places you go
Crack open your skull time to investigate
OK, so this fucking rocks. And yet it doesn’t rock your soul like some other songs on ‘DECK’ possess the capacity to, which is why there are 47 songs better. It’s a little b-side coded, and it doesn’t sound like it was really developed as much as other songs on the project, but there’s a pretty great song inside here somewhere.
47 The End is Just Beginning (Queen of Spades)
The end is just beginning, we’ll start here, my friends
The signs have withered up and died
So I don’t know where-to next
Is the best behind me?
Weren’t you my compass?
Even with the addition of trumpets, banjos and a choir, The End is the Beginning still strikes me as one of the final songs finished for the project, and contains lyrics noticeably more straightforward and basic than other tracks. What’s the matter, Walsh, couldn’t think of more than 50 incisive and intelligent lyrics? What a fucking fraud.
For those of you wondering if this could have been meant to be the final track of the entire project, it’s not even the last track of the ‘Spades’ album! This guy can’t do anything right!!
46 Some Rest for the Wicked (8 of Hearts)
Oh right, here comes that old dynamic
The white wine, the car ride, the Xanax
And the half-remembered nights
Cause you know, wouldn’t it be fitting
If the guilty came admitting
All they had done?
And hun, I know that you were kidding
Yet there is some rest for the wicked
Somewhere out there.
See? That’s a lyric.
Definite ‘album track’ energy, which will be disappointing to those of you approaching ‘DECK’ expecting more than fifty banging lead singles that sound like Billboard #1s. It’s a cool, underplayed, lyrical showcase with a subtle melody that builds to a gorgeous choir ending. There’s not much to it, but what is there is pretty lovely.
45 I Remember This (King of Clubs)
It would be cheap to explain it away
By saying it was all a dream
It strips the truth of its edge
And makes this easy to believe
This is actually the final song of the ‘Clubs’ deck/album, and is a fun little country adjacent stomper that’s clearly designed to be played in a barn.
44 Just Another Night on Planet Earth (Ace of Hearts)
Backstabbers, false hearts, propagandists
Try not to participate, you’re still a part of it
An incredibly deft deft slow burn that opens the ‘Heart’ album perfectly. Perhaps never going to win many awards as a song in its own right, but a lovely and subtle introduction to its suit. On of the songs on ‘DECK’ that’s always going to lose its power when listened to out of context. Literally lost in the shuffle.
43 I’m Your Palindrome (10 of Clubs)
We were talking about starting this thing at the end
I retraced my steps and now I’m back here again
Play it backwards, I don’t care
Fast forward through the tears
It’s a linear life
If the sequence is right
Yeah, so this song was 100% just a silly lyrical idea that Walsh had that they wanted to see if they could stretch out over a whole song. Dumb little tune, but a lot of fun.
Aaaaaaaah, but is each line palindromic though?? Do they actually read the same both forward and backward??
No. No they don’t. Lazy. This should probably be ranked lower. Referencing palindromes in the title and not making the song palindromic is actually pretty disgusting. Imagine if I titled this post ‘Goatse DECK’ and didn’t include a single photo of Goatse Girl? I’d be professionally humiliated.
Our potential is thicker than blood (and I’m)
The dumbest of angels that’s ever been assigned to you (so if)
You ever get lonely, dear, I will preserve your dreams
OK, so I kind of hate this song. I hate its jaunty, Beatles indebted bounce, I hate its dreaded whimsey, and I hate how it sometimes sounds like it doesn’t have an original bone in its body. But… I kind of love the lyrics, and I adore Leeore Schnairsohn’s lead vocal. That final coda of “Become your own Everest/Then bring your mooooooooountain down to me” gets me every fucking time.
To be clear: I have no idea who Leeore Schnairsohn is.
41 Untitled, Actual Title (Joker 1)
Our first Joker, and an incredibly infectious little instrumental that I would have loved to see made into a… y’know… proper song…
40 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
A great little fuzz rocker that I think suffers slightly because the song seems ever so strangely reserved despite obvious intentions for a grand freak out. Feeling Is Mine needs to be full on, dicks slapping against pickups, frets inside vaginas, cymbals up arseholes explosion of insane noise, an unreserved karmic howl of release. However, as good as it is, it never seems to get past third or fourth gear. I want, like, a millionth gear, you get me?
39 Grateful Dead Sweater (6 of Diamonds)
Nothing still makes me dream of Heather
No sunny skies or even stormy weather
Fuck me, #39? There’s a lot of great songs on this project…
I think, counterintuitively, I might have placed this so low because the lyrics speak to me personally and can be linked to a specific time in my life that I’m not going to bore you with. Though in my feels this is one of the most notable tracks on ‘DECK’, I know that as a song it isn’t that good, so have maybe placed it far lower than it should be to overcompensate. At less than three minutes, it’s perhaps less than its parts suggest it should be, and it seems to wrap up before it can build to the big crescendo it deserves (though the “No ‘Boooooox of Rain’ or that one about a train” breakdown is still fabulous), or maybe there is legitimately 38 songs on ‘DECK’ better than this gem??
To bee clear: the song doesn’t have literal meaning for me. I have never nor will ever associate myself with Grateful Dead fans.
38 The World is Not What You Think It Is (5 of Spades)
Paint over the murals, burn down your atlas.
We want you. I want you.
If you keep thinking about your own funeral
Or sobbing outside the sunset factory,
If you stand frozen in the grocery aisle disassociating into the ether,
If you believe that songs are advertisements for feelings,
If your pockets are filled with ceremonial grade sage,
Or that everyone used to play a game called
My Greek Chorus when you were a kid
But everyone you ask has no idea what that is
Well, buddy, we’ve got good news
Fucking incredible stuff. HtH come over all Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen with a spoken word song backed with luscious electronics and narrated by the former host of ‘What’s Happening, Mr Silver?’, a legendarily trippy Boston TV show that Walsh wrote about in their book about 1968.
This is the kind of lesson you only learn once. I love you. Good luck.
I love you. Good luck.
I love you. Good luck.
I love you. Good luck.
37 Burn this Atlas Down (2 of Clubs)
They say when in Rome, I guess I’m always there, in a way
We may not be in Kansas but it still feels like home
A compass in hand in a non-magnetic land
California dreamin became my one true nightmare
The song on ‘DECK’ where Walsh most exhibits their unquenchable desire for wordplay. The lyric finds them reaching for as many place related references as they can. Do they manage to name all 50 US states though. No. No they don’t. In fact, they start off with “I never been to Stockholm but I’ve enjoyed its syndrome”, and mention Rome, so maybe they were going for every country but could only name two places outside the US?? It’s… distracting…
It’s a bit of a stonking song though. Featuring Craig Finn, which is appropriate, as the Hold Steady energy is strong.
36 Failure’s my Fuel (9 of Clubs)
So let’s go get humbled
Where the dangers are doubled
The rewards barely
Matching one tenth of what we had to put in
Can’t rest on my laurels
Ain’t nobody immortal
And you know I’m not motivated by fame, fortune, power, or jewels
No, failure’s my fuel
A great, classic, basic but effective, ‘yeah, I might fuck up quite a lot’ punk rock banger.
35 It’s Undeniable (2 of Spades)
I’ve got a zest for life, I’m in a violent choir
I’ve got a tape deck dream, I built a birthing pyre
It does sound a bit like Revol, you’re right! The sixth track from ‘The Holy Bible‘ was obvious a major influence on this wonderfully scuzzy rocker, and considering the band are American there really is no other way that they would have ever heard that song unless they encountered it being mentioned on this very blog! I’m sure that I’ve been credited on the song though:
What?? So no shout out to the song’s biggest inspiration – yours truly, Big Man Franchise over here – but props to some rando for a ‘Live Podcast Overdub’?? How do you even play that instrument??
Lebensraum! Kulturkampf! Raus raus! Fila fila!
34 Fake Flowers at Sunset (3 of Diamonds)
I love you like a human being does
I love you like beyond repair
OK, so this countdown’s gone to some pretty far out places in the last few entries, but this beautiful and stirring alt-country ballad featuring ex-Silver Jews member (and wife of the sadly departed David) Cassie Berman is as close to sounding like a classic Hallelujah the Hills song were such a thing to exist. Reminding me of Bright Eyes’ Road to Joy in parts (which I can’t take credit for introducing to the band… or can I…?), it’s a great mid paced feels-a-thon. It’s relatively low because it sounds like the kind of gorgeous little paean the band could write in their sleep, and not them pushing their abilities as they do in other areas of ‘DECK’
33 This is a Song (Jack of Diamonds)
I was running on empty
I was dumb as a moon rock
I was always in motion
I was never pretending
Yeah, another ‘great but obviously it’s great’ ‘classic’ HtH song that would fit very snugly onto any of their better records but would never be a inarguable standout. It’s an absolute gem though, with the “We’re alone in America/We’re alone in the song” breakdown a particular highlight.
Although I did have to check something:
…so thank fuck for that.
Also features Ezra Furman, for all you big ‘Necessary Evil 2018‘ fans out there.
32 The Loudest Sound (7 of Hearts)
Deep in your memory, that’s where you’ll find me
Every noise I make’s the loudest sound
Unending dreamscape shattered by soundquakes
Every noise I make’s the loudest sound
After a couple of intensely ‘Hallelujah the Hills sounding’ tracks, we reach a song that at once sounds absolutely like a classic HtH track, and yet quite unlike anything they’ve done before. The Hills love making things sound BIG, and to their credit this full, muscular and layered sound is integral to the very particular music they make. Yet The Loudest Sound – despite the usual HtH’s side orders of trumpets, pianos, bells and whistles – manages to sound so delicate and fragile, with a chorus that sounds as soft and graceful as anything they’ve ever done. It would be higher, but the band just can’t stand staying denying their DNA for so long, and it ends with a chorus of voices and more instrumentation than it can handle, going far too BIG when the song really needed to remain small.
So it’s only #32. Because they never learn.
31 This is Not a Dream (Ace of Spades)
I been too damn defeated to try to turn these wrong into rights
I walk for days searchin’ for real connection
I meditate tryin’ to set some intention
But I get clobbered by the cruelty of a Venn diagram’s intersection
A certified epic, an incredible trumpet line, an spectacular opener to the ‘Spades’ album and, yes, we seriously have thirty more songs even better than this.
This is your Ace of Spades, though?
30 A Lot of Super Weird Stuff Went Down Right Before I Met You (Jack of Spades)
Well, I’ve got a big heart and while that’s a good start
Is it enough to eclipse all the headlines and not tear us apart?
Cuz some other people figured I was crazy right from the start
The top 30 – the top thirty. Best songs from this one project – opens with possibly ‘DECK’s most restrained, most stripped back, and most nakedly vulnerable track. Or, at least the second most restrained, stripped back and nakedly vulnerable track after the song that’s ranked #29. I mean, this is still HtH we’re talking about here, so we still get the odd viola and a little banjo sprinkled onto the lone acoustic guitar, but unlike The Loudest Sound the band’s maximalist tendencies (which, I should stress, are the inclinations that ensure their greatest songs pop so hard) are never in danger of overwhelming the gorgeous delicacy of the track.
29 Something Great (Jack of Hearts)
I am trying to do something great
And you may never forgive me
Full disclosure; peek behind the wizard’s sleeve; hands on my head, motherfuckers, this is a hold up and you’ve come for what’s yours – when I first compiled the rough spreadsheet ranking the ‘DECK’ songs I had Something Great as dead last. I mentally compartmentalised it alongside Phantom Ring as a serviceable, workable, but ultimately forgettable nothingburger of a song with next to no imprint on my memory. It was only when I sat down to write this article that I realised that I was an absolute fucking idiot.
Something Great is probably ‘DECK’s least immediate track, and listening to it you’ll understand that, yes, there’s essentially nothing to it. But it’s a subtle and lowkey heartbreaking song that has the ability to slowly violate your deepest feels if you allow it the appropriate time. Were I to make this list again in 2027 – NOTE: I will absolutely fucking not be doing that – then it may be top 5.
28 I’m Your Meteorite (4 of Clubs)
It’s no secret the way
That I burst into flames as I arrive
But I survive the heat
And you run straight to me: “Got a light?”
A fascinating sounding, haunted carnival of a song that manages to be at once a sweet and simple song comparing a potential beau entering someone’s life like an intergalactic rock bursting into the Earth’s surface, while at the same time sounding spooky as all hell. Like, are you one of those good meteorites? Like the one that David Bowie was on? Or is this a ‘kill the dinosaurs’ kind of situation?
27 Modern Loss (Jack of Clubs)
No one gets plastic surgery in a folk song
But the night is still young
Operators are standing by
Ready to shake and assist you
Those arresting opening lines are referring to the person the song is aimed at getting angel wings surgically attached attached so that they can enter heaven. Ryan H. Walsh’s openers on Tinder are something else. This song is bonkers. I love it.
26 Classic of the Genre (Queen of Hearts)
Tell me ’bout your worst night
Disaster under moonlight
Every time you tell me the same joke
You know I’m amazed
Listen, I’ve said previously that the quality of songs on ‘DECK’ is pretty damn consistent, there are no bad songs here and my personal ranking may just reflect some weird psychosexual inclination within my DNA that induces me to react to some songs far more favorably than others. I’d say maybe the top 10-15 songs on ‘DECK’ are standout classics that I’d fight to the death for; Superglued to You is the worst because I’m whining about them changing a song I like; but everything in between pretty much depends on personal tastes. Maybe, to you, Classic of the Genre is one of the ‘meh’ songs. Maybe you find it inconsequential, slight and entirely forgettable. Maybe you’re horrified that its finished this high above Divine Interventions, one of your personal faves.
I understand all that, I really do, but allow me to ask one question: Does Divine Interventions feature a singing saw? No? Then sit you arse back the fuck down. Bitch.
25 Places, Everybody (King of Spades)
The escape act gets chained up
Dropped in water
and then time stands still
Da-da, da-da-da-da-daa!
Scientifically, you’d describe this song as ‘rollicking’.
Also, when Walsh sings “Then time stands still”, the song actually stops for a couple of seconds. I love that kinda shit.
24 Actual Title, Untitled (Joker 2)
Of course, Prince is by no means the only artist you’d associate with big albums with loads of tracks – The Magnetic Fields have come up on this post multiple times already and artists like The Clash and Drake love to pack ‘dem records full – but Prince in the 1980s is probably the artist most associated with being prolific enough to pull off a project like ‘DECK’. In fact, Prince would have loved to be on a record company that would let him release a ‘DECK’ every year. Although, inevitably, He would call it ‘SEX’.
And the spirit of Prince is exhumed a little more on the second Joker, which came from the band improvising at the end of a session and coming up with a post rock stormer that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Godspeed You! Black Emperor album. One notable difference though, is that while Prince was obsessively protective over His own intellectual property and music rights after such an extended war with His label – to such an extent that it damaged His longterm success – HtH have decided not to copywrite the music of either Joker on ‘DECK’, meaning they’re both public domain and would be a great choice to provide the beats for your upcoming Soundcloud mixtape.
23 The Night Machine (10 of Hearts)
I’ve always heard that you’re everyone in your dream
But I’m never sure if I really know what that means
So I made a plan to see if it’s really true
Lay next to me and we’ll try to see this vision through
Night machine! Aaaaaaaaaaaaa-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
22 Crush All Night (5 of Clubs)
Cuz coddling will do you no good
You gotta face the facts like they said you should
If it all comes down to the wire
Let my veins be wires and crush all night
A punk rock barnstormer, with music and production that more than lives up to the song’s central embrace of chaos. And a song about, I can only assume, how Walsh plans to spend their whole night crushing puss.
21 Scream Into the Void (2 of Hearts)
It’s a beautiful world and it will try to kill you when you’re not looking
It’s a beautiful world but it won’t be satisfied until you’re dead
It’s a beautiful world and though there aint’ no place like home
The land it sits on is loaned and there’s people there that won’t ever leave you alone
I’ve mentioned Magnetic Fields functionally may times in this piece, but Scream Into the Void will be the first time I mention them artistically. This upbeat, soaring, cello-centred gem with wittily grim but ultimately good natured lyrics would not sound out of place on any of Stephin Merritt’s best albums.
When the aces up your sleeve
Turn to diamonds in the rough
You know it’ll never be enough, to be just one cut above
So look the dealer in the eye
Pleading hit me ’til I die
And let the cards fall where they may
Sorry I’m late, I’m on my way
Easter Egg? Yeah? No? Maybe? Is that a thing.
Happy Easter everyone, by the way.
20 Alone, in Love (5 of Diamonds)
Oh hi there, hello, I didn’t really hear you come in
If you stay real quiet, I’ll tell you about the fever withinTry as you may, it’s a bust
But surprise, turns out, I’ll never give up
Dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag…
Is it myyyyyyy imaginanaaaaaaaay-choooon…?!
Or, if you’re a little older than me:
Dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag…
Well you’re dirty and sweet clad in black…!
Or, if you’re a lot older than me:
Dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag, dag dagga, dagga-dag-dag…
I got lumps in my throat when I saw her comin’ down the aisle…!
Yes, here it is again, the song ranked (very harshly) as the 134th best of 2024 appears on the album it was trailing, with a sample added to an extended outro rather than any real change from the single version. Yeah, that’s another “Fuck you” to Superglued to You. A classic twelve bar wig-out, that only disappoints by ending at less than eight minutes.
19 Uncanny Valley (Ace of Clubs)
They always numb out when I shake hands say nice to meet ya
Around these parts that’s why they call me Local Anesthesia
One of HtH’s issues is that they’re just too good at what they do. There have been tracks on this countdown so far that I’ve mentioned not sounding anyway near as unhinged and as chaotic as the song seems to be demanding it be. And I think that’s because the band is a collection of musicians so talented that they find it hard to sound like they don’t know what they’re doing! HtH’s songs are precise, they’re measured, and they’re musically always perfectly in tune with each other and the song. The band find it difficult to make music that sounds anarchic and unskilled in the same way Messi would find it difficult to pretend to to kick a ball as badly as I do.
The opener of the ‘Clubs’ suit is one absolute exception to that though: the instruments in Uncanny Valley sound like they’re trying to scratch each other’s eyes out, and the band attempting to control these scrapping instruments are recording this song while being pushed down a flight of stairs. Meanwhile, nobody came to the opening night of Ryan H. Walsh’s interpretive poetry show last night, and you can tell from his voice just how much he resents these cunts for that.
One of the few (and minor) complaints you can have about ‘DECK’ is that it can as a whole sometimes come across as a little too thought out and calculated, and there aren’t enough moments of insane a cathartic release, but Uncanny Valley is absolutely one of those.
18 I Did My Own Stunts (4 of Spades)
Days in the canyon
Evenings on the peaks
I don’t need any Everests when I’m running out with the freaks
I know that someday they’ll ask me,
“Excuse me, sir?
Did you do your own stunts?
Did you jump the ravine?
Did you travel by hurricane? Get mangled by the machine?”
Yeah, I did my own stunts
That’s when I reach for my revolver! That’s when it all gets blown away!
Yeah, so this song might be even more wild and uninhibited than the last one. And features the leader singer of Mission of fucking Burma, by the way.
17 Gimme Midnight (Ace of Diamonds)
Dwellin’ in dusk
Cigarette lit
Wanna be there when the day gets hit
Ooooh, yes, this is my shit right here. A dark, antagonistic and brooding rocker reminiscent of mid period REM, and that’s amongst the darkest points of the ‘DECK’ project. An intriguing intro to the ‘Diamonds’ suit, which we’re told to read as the proper, actual follow-up album to 2019’s ‘I’m You’. It promises a dark night of the soul that the following album never quite becomes (the very next track in fact, as we’ll soon see, is just one of the most straight up lovely songs they’ve ever done). The whole shuffling/Tarot Card concept really comes into its own with a track like this: whatever cards you pull, there’s always a chance Gimme Midnight might pop up and inject your album with a lethal dose of poison.
16 Old Feelings, New England (9 of Diamonds)
Oh Winona! Oh Rita!
Shall we reenact our old routine?
You could enter stage right turn on the kitchen light
Announce we’re all just trapped in the dream
Like, shit, this is on the same album as Gimme Midnight, yet this song is as wistfully mournful and achingly beautiful as any you’re have likely to have heard recently. Is that first track so malicious and karmically unbalanced that the rest of ‘Diamonds’ has to overcompensate?
15 I Got Out of This World Alive (7 of Spades)
Speaking of a double dare, Rasputin, hold my beer
Speaking of a double dare, I’m an animal
When I did my own shuffled ‘DECK’ hand for my post about the album making #8 in last year’s countdown, this loose and woozy bar tune was pulled. Thankfully, that means I’ve already researched that the astonishing (and uncannily Bowie-like) vocals are performed by Rob Johanson, a member of Ryan H. Walsh’s previous band The Stairs. It really does call to mind the kind of song Bowie would produce late at night in Berlin in the late 70’s, after taking more cocaine and quaaludes than any human being had ever consumed at that point in history (the bar would be raised in the 1980’s, obviously). I mean that as the highest possible compliment, of course.
14 FugaziBlackHoleMirage (7 of Clubs)
A moon walks into a star and says,
“Gimme a Black Hole on the asteroids”
My horse is drunk, my world is fucked
You’d think at this point I might be worried
Fuck. Yes. One of the greatest straight up rock songs on the ‘DECK’ project, with one of the most incessant and undeniable sing-along choruses, and even including a little guitar solo. Dude, this is proper, devil horn, studded jacket stuff.
And, honestly – I promise this isn’t a joke – hearing the lyrics to this song was the first time I realised that ‘fugazi’ was an actual seperate slang word, and not just the name of that band. It was like finding out that ‘aerosmith’ is just an American term for flight attendants.
13 Samantha, You’re the Only Mistake I Know How to Make (10 of Diamonds)
You’re an unforced error / A tiny terror / A wallflower set to attack
I’m the unmade bed / A luxurious dread / And you know we have to go backYou know that I just don’t seem to know when to quit
And even though we know what awaits
Samantha, you’re the only mistake I know how to make
Again, this album starts with Gimme Midnight…
Just… wonderful… Emotionally, it’s another one that I feel strongly connected to, so full feels disclosure there if I’m accused of letting my heart rule my hand. But – fuck me – it’s just an achingly gorgeous song, I don’t give a shit how much your dumb heart connects to it! Seriously, you hear the way the orchestra swells underneath the “And I’m just like those leaves/And though I fall from the tree” and it will change your fucking life!!
So, erm, yeah, anyway, twelve more to go…
12 Animals in Love (4 of Hearts)
Tunnel vision, sacrifice
Origin stories and endless nights
Is it bliss or toxic? Cool or hot?
When the wheel stops spinning
You better hope you’re notAn animal in love
An animal in love
An animal in love
With another animal
An incredibly layered, sinister yet beautiful song. A fabulous track which kind of shows why HtH could never do the sardonic and cynically dark record that Gimme Midnight suggests. On paper and lyrically, Animals in Love is as cynical and dismissive as even the most aloof of John Grant’s acerbic takedowns of the popular idea of ‘love’. Yet the band are just far too genuine, far too earnest to ever really sound cynical. Though Animals in Love lyrically dissects the boring biological facts about human courtship, and chides its potentially devastating consequences, the music and Walsh’s delivery still makes the song sound like the singer is still yearning for these dangerous feelings. They know what we call ‘love’ is likely going to wreck their life, but they want it anyway.
Shucks, how do they make a song so cynical come across so beautifully?
11 Feels Like Forever (King of Hearts)
I ran into a stranger on a train
We locked eyes briefly, what could have been
I’d be surprised if he even remembered it just a few minutes laterBut it feels like forever
Last night I had the strangest dream
I lived as another woman in another’s dream
The experience lasted for years
woke up just a few hours laterBut it feels like forever
Actually, it’s only seven minutes and twenty seconds, but I get what you’re saying.
Epic. Beautiful. Gorgeous. An incredible advert for the band’s musical talents, and a better U2 song than U2 themselves have managed to do in at least 30 years. I don’t know who Julia Papps is, but their lead vocal is exquisite. They serve cunt, as the kids would say.
10 Here Goes Nothing (Queen of Diamonds)
I remember almost dying in expensive hotels
pathetic whimpers followed all my rebel yells
I could check out if I wanted, guess I finally did
Now I’m back to make my rivals all hate me again
One of the band’s greatest ever songs that already feels like a standard. It would likely be placed a lot higher (possibly even first) if I was hearing for the first time, not reminding myself of loving the song so much that I placed it at #69 (dude) in my best songs of 2024. A classic, with incredible mastery of timing and the perfect amount of screamed “FUCK!!“s that all great songs should possess.
9 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
Some songs on ‘DECK’ I can explain the artistic, personal or cultural relevance that justifies whatever place in this ranking it occupies. Some songs just slap so fucking hard that I don’t need to waste your time.
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!
Holy fuck, you guys, I think Ryan H. Walsh is going to kick my arse…
Who the fuck is this badass, muscular frontman? I don’t see any Josh Homme credit? What have I done to upset them and how do I keep them away from me??
Hits Get Hard is an astonishingly robust and sinewy rocker, that infuses the ‘DECK’ project with bulging veins and slips a secreted switchblade into its sleeve while whispering “You’ll understand later”. A real wildcard, because if you shuffle ‘DECK’ and pull Hits Get Hard, then it’s simply going to beat the shit out of all the other songs, leaving you with a one track album. Luck of the draw 🤷♀️.
7 Fade to White (Queen of Clubs)
Queen Anne’s lace and bloodroot cover our unified fields
Pushing & pulling the landscape, always refusing to yield
With series finale vibes in the air
I could find some comforts inside the nest of your hair
Another exemplary rock song. And probably the one song on ‘DECK’ that I can confidently say I have no fucking idea what it’s about.
Who cares? Party on, dude.
6 Too High to Say Hello (7 of Diamonds)
It’s easier to write
I can work on a single phrase the entire night
And I realize
That’s not your style
Cuz you always went non-verbal after awhileYou were too high to say hello
You were too high to say hello
And I thought you’d just like to know
I was too high to say hello
Yeah, Walsh definitely thought of the title first here and then wrote a song around it. But it doesn’t matter, because the title is fucking incredible, and Walsh obviously understood how it deserved to be backed by one of the band’s greatest songs. The way the song starts off acapella before bursting into life, and then keeps bursting higher… and higher… and higher, until it’s an irresistible cacophony of sardonic joy.
And, yeah, obviously, one of the more relatable tracks for me. And for you. Some of you might have to replace ‘high’ with ‘drunk’. Or ‘fat’. “I was too fat to say hello”. That’s you, that is.
5 Joke’s on You (2 of Diamonds)
Time’s running out
You keep moving your mouth
And the bullshit that comes out
Removes all remaining doubt
Come on now. Come on, yeah?
Jokes on You isn’t one of the more experimental songs on ‘DECK’. In fact, it might be one of the most standard folk/rock/indie songs on the project, with a distinct lack of bells, whistles, or any gimmicks at all. On paper, it’s absolutely nothing special. On record, it’s fucking magical. A simple but perfect four minute pop song with pristine lyrics and absolutely no wasted moment. The very best songs on ‘DECK’ are often those songs that see the band take some artistic risks or play far outside their wheelhouse, but Jokes on You is simply Hallelujah the Hills doing Hallelujah the Hills fucking perfectly.
4 Rebuilding Year (4 of Diamonds)
Well Ravi moved to Iowa
I lived with Gary till he married Nance
What’s it even matter though?
I see no ring on your handI put mine in a deposit box
Tried to forget that I was happy once
Then I stopped getting haircuts
Then I stopped giving any fucksWhat are you doing here?
Watch my cool just disappear
You’ll have to pardon my appearance
Cuz it’s a re-building year
‘DECK’ returns to the dilapidated carnival that I’m Your Meteorite took place in, only this time to make impossibly beautiful music backing perhaps the saddest lyric on the record. 2018’s Ezra Furman reappears to give the performance of their life, badly suppressing angry despair as they compare their wreckage of a life with the people they grew up with. I’ve always read the lyrics (which might be the best on the project) as the singer running into their ex spouse at a carnival, realising how bad they look, how bad a state their life is in, and trying their best to convince their ex that, no, actually, I’m doing great, I’m kind of between jobs at the moment actually. The hair? Yeah, erm, I’m actually trying to grow it out, kind of just trying out a new style. Yes, I am wearing a grocery bag as trousers, it’s a fashion thing, don’t worry about it… I’m doing so good…
I can’t relate, obviously, but I’m sure some of you losers can.
Unrelated, but if you’re reading this, Ellie, please get in touch. I just want to explain why you saw me walking into Wetherspoons at 10am last Wednesday.
3 I’m Your Tambourine (8 of Spades)
Try this on for size, try out a diet of crow
We’ve been humbled to the max, ready to reap what we’ve sowed
And they can’t kill you until they kill me
So I’ll stay alive but only you can set me free
SHAKE ME INTO EXISTENCE!!
An absolute fucking bop.
Next!
2 Follow the Foreshadowing (King of Diamonds)
“What I want?”
All I’m asking for is ultimate revenge
“To what end?”
Well, it’s better than never having loved at all
The final song on the ‘Diamonds’ suit also sounds like the true closure of the entire ‘DECK’ project. The band and all of the contributors deserve enough standing ovations to make Pavarotti blush after somehow managing to complete this most ambitious of projects, and Follow the Foreshadowing sees 21 people come to the front of the stage and bow.
And they receive their flowers by performing the most complete, most epic, and most densely produced and full sounding song on the record. Follow the Foreshadowing is a victory lap that also (almost) manages to be the project’s standout moment. Maybe I’m a big softy – a libtard cuck snowflake, if you will – but after spending all this time living within the vast and varied world that ‘DECK’ created, I sometimes get a lump in my throat listening to Follow the Foreshadowing. Hallelujah the Hills managed to create a monumental and mammoth artistic achievement through the powers of their own talents, their own insane ambition and workrate, but also – importantly – through the power of community. ‘DECK’ only exists because on money made from fans contributing on Patreon in order to play a part in this mad plan that the artist they loved had. And the record itself is supported by the contributions of over fifty guests – “From our musical peers, to our musical heroes, to musicians-for-hire in Nigeria and Italy, to bag-pipers in Scotland, to my old high school media studies teacher, to a barroom of people at the Brendan Behan Pub singing along with full glasses in hand*” – further solidifying ‘DECK’ as an unbelievable triumph not just of art and music, but of community and solidarity. And I’m sorry, will you let me get a little chocked up over that, please??
(*the pub singalong immortalised at the end of Follow the Foreshadowing. Those people should be immortalised like the Apollo 11 astronauts)
Yeah, but it’s not the best song though..
1 No One Remembers Their Names (10 of Spades)
While these idiots sit and argue whether we’ve been to the moon
I can tell you we first got there back in 1902
Roosevelt hired a Frenchman to shoot it all on film
Academics praise its genius while Selenites live among us stillThey’re your neighbors, they’re your leaders, aliens in disguise
No surprise that no one will tell you their names
Hmmm, what did I just say about the Apollo 11…?
The average quality of ‘DECK’ is incredibly high. It’s no exaggeration to say that there isn’t a song on the record that couldn’t be described as at least very good. The quality control would be insane if the project had fifteen songs, never mind 54. The floor of the songs’ quality is admirably high.
But… I do occasionally worry about the project’s ceiling. There are no bad songs. There are arguably no merely fine songs. There are many, many, many brilliant songs. But do any of the songs smash that ceiling and become truly immortal. Are any of these songs equals of the band’s very best? Is there anything here as stupendous as Running Hot With Fate or Nightingale Lightning? Probably not. Late on, I decided that I wouldn’t be including songs from ‘DECK’ in my Legit Bosses of the year list because I knew I was eventually going to write this post. However, truthfully, I only think three or four songs from ‘DECK’ were actually in the running. I know it’s harsh to chide a 54 song project for not having one of the best songs ever on it, but it’s the reason an otherwise spectacular collection of songs was only ranked at #8 in my year end list.
None of the best rock songs of all time, I should clarify. Because I don’t know what the fuck No One Remembers Their Name is, but it’s obviously one of the greatest things ever.
Evan Sicuranza, another ex-bandmate of Walsh, sings/explains a series of forgotten historical moments, such as the Grand Canyon being created by 10’000 men sacrificing their lives to dig it out with silver spoons; Mt. Rushmore’s heads being carved out of heads that were already there of figures that have now been forgotten; Elvis Pressley was actually cloned, although one of his clones actually went on a killing spree and was imprisoned, so Jailhouse Rock was written to cover his crime up. Y’know, the stuff they don’t teach you in history class. Evan Sicuranza’s TikTok must be lit.
What does it all mean? Fucked it I know, but I’d happily debate it with you?? It’s a lyric that could contain meanings that only detailed study could uncover, or it could all be complete horseshit that sounds cool and happens to rhyme. It exhibits the same playfulness that the band have previously shown when ‘discovering’ old recordings of the Beatles songs being transmitted parapsychologically. It’s hilarious if you want it to be, it’s ripe for deeper reading if you fancy that too. An incredible lyrical achievement.
Most importantly though, the music absolutely blows you away. It builds alongside the vocals, and absolutely explodes into life when the song kicks in. Hallelujah the Hills as a band have never sounded this alive, never played this tight before. The whole track sounds like it’s tumbling into existence, like the band themselves have been taken over by unseen and strange paranormal forces. It sounds like a jam session by the world’s greatest musicians that the Gods have decided to make into one of Earth’s mightiest songs. On ‘DECK’, Hallelujah the Hills give countless examples of how well they can play Hallelujah the Hills songs. On No One Remembers Their Names, they show how well they can play music you’ve never fucking heard before.
Yeah, it has to be this song. It’s fucking batshit mental and I love it so much.
Thanks a bunch to… erm… Ryan H. Walsh themselves, who was kind enough to send me digital copies of all the card artwork (which the fucking weirdo did themselves alongside the music!!) to save me trying to capture each card on my camera phone. Oh, and thanks for ‘DECK’ as well, It’s pretty good 👍
Necessary Evil 