In case you missed it, Halloweens are Justin Young and Timothy Lanham and they’ve just put out a new EP. Maserati Anxiety Designed is as irreverent as the title suggests, and it’s out now (August 21). Halloweens have been busy; Morning Kiss at the Acropolis, their debut album, only came out on March 28 of this year. But Halloweens aren’t really debuting, because Justin and Timothy are 2/5 of the Vaccines, a band that has certainly carved its place by now.
our new 6 song EP ‘maserati anxiety designed’ is out today everywhere – in this life and the next. it’s a M.A.D world nowhttps://t.co/D86JRhHSOc pic.twitter.com/E3CFI46KMs
— Halloweens (@halloweensband) August 21, 2020
Maserati Anxiety Designed has a slick, low-key, synth vibe, in contrast to the vintage pop sound of Morning Kiss at the Acropolis. What the two records have in common is a vast amount of talent – we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking of this as ‘just’ a side project, because it’s as tight and curated as anything. ‘Creative outlet’ is a far more appropriate term; you can really tell that Justin Young just has songs spilling out of him. And Timothy Lanham has a really exciting angle to give to them.
Thinking about side projects, this is what Young told The Line Of Best Fit: “The Vaccines are the great love of my life – it changed everything for me. It’s the thing I lose sleep over, the thing I think about all morning and night, it’s the main and most important thing in our lives. But when you’re in a band for almost ten years with four other people, you do have to collaborate and compromise.”
Maserati Anxiety Designed, the title track, is tightly controlled, switching between its urgent verses and then slowing down for the refrain “I hate how quickly you can change your mind.” Its best lyric is “Try to destroy it / Helen of Troy it” – there’s that line, and the Acropolis setting of the first album, and then (possibly the record’s best moment) “you’re well versed in all of the classics / Roman, Greek and Reebok too” in ‘Divinity Pools’. It’s making me think I want to have a great conversation with Justin Young about ancient Greece.
‘Divinity Pools’ was the first teaser single, released earlier this year, and it’s a real highlight of the record. Its other great moment is “I feel like I could cry / streaming on demand / but it’s so off brand.” This is the video, an ode to lockdown in London and Australia (where Lanham has been since March). There’s a lot of running.
The other real highlight of Maserati Anxiety Designed is ‘Lonely Boy Forever’, the second single (released July 24). I’d say this one grows and grows – it’s good at first, but it’s great after a few listens. ‘Lonely Boy Forever’ masterfully deploys one of the EP’s greatest strengths: a catchy and super tight chorus.
The whole EP is only seventeen minutes long and not one of those minutes is wasted; at the end of ‘Alligator Jackie’ it stops just like that, with a single note and a rhyme on ‘incidental’. A lot of Halloweens’ early material came out of a song writing session in Paris, and there’s definitely something European about it all. If, for most people, the Vaccines remind them of Friday night gigs and a lot of people wearing great denim, then Halloweens are more like long summer days in Europe where you might idle around a museum and briefly become obsessed with a specific ancient statue. If that’s what you think you’re missing, then stream Maserati Anxiety Designed from today (August 21).
