Heavy Halo is the New York City project of McKeever and Gosteffects. The duo create their own brand of industrial music, combined with unique guitar riffs and melodic electronica. The band also have a knack of incorporating some catchy hooks into their sound. Heavy Halo release their new self-titled album on July 25th via Silent Pendulum Records, ahead of the LP’s arrival Heavy Halo has shared a video for “Lost In Heaven.”

FFO: Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, and Health.

McKeever spent years studying composition at Columbia University while playing every sweat-soaked DIY venue possible. Gosteffects was banging out weaponized techno at illegal raves across the country. Finally, the two met and immediately felt something in common: both would be dead if they didn’t create music.

But Heavy Halo wouldn’t come together until after McKeever went through a chaotic spiral that sent him to New Orleans, Los Angeles, a psychiatric ward, and back.

They regrouped in New York’s pandemic wasteland, holed up in Gosteffect’s studio built in a former hospital. Driven by desperation and claustrophobia, clawing up the walls as they closed in, they ended up crafting the most emotional songs either had ever recorded. The resulting debut album was pure catharsis.

Northern Transmissions: Heavy Halo seems to deal a lot in dualities: highs and lows, pain and pleasure, heaven and hell… Your quote about “Lost in Heaven” states: “You’re riding that thin line between agony and ecstasy. You’re lost in heaven.” Are there authors, philosophers, or filmmakers, who inform Heavy Halo’s worldview? Or is it entirely born out of your own experiences?

McKeever: As far as philosophers and authors, there are several that immediately spring to mind: Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow self is huge in our music. He believed that the dark aspects of your personality cannot be ignored, suppressed, or caged. Rather, your negative unconscious must be confronted, accepted, and integrated with your conscious mind in order to transcend as a person and reach your full potential. All of our songs deal with acknowledging our shadow self in one way or another. Through admitting the unsavory aspects of our nature and marinating in them, hopefully we can understand our demons and grow from them.

Albert Camus’s vision of existentialism is also a big influence. The view that the world is inherently absurd and meaningless but you can create your own meaning rather than resign yourself to nihilistic despair drives me to keep creating. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

As far as the heaven and hell imagery, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are endlessly inspiring. Lucifer simply wanted autonomy and self-actualization, can you really fault him for that?

NT: The “Lost in Heaven” consists of footage from your recent summer tour with Light Asylum. Give us your favorite story from that tour.

McKeever: A funny story happened when Gosteffects got briefly questioned at the Canadian border. He had been booked to DJ in Calgary years back but was unable to do so since he didn’t have a manifest letter from the venue. So he was allowed into the country but not able to perform.

They questioned him about that and what he was doing in Canada this time, to which he said he was playing synth. The border patrol said that he didn’t need a manifest letter from the venue to “play piano” because that is a unique talent whereas “everyone can dj.” Pretty hilarious the Canadian border control views playing synth as a special talent but DJing as not, lmao.

NT: With the new album out now, what’s next for Heavy Halo?

McKeever: We have a West Coast tour in the works, keep your eyes peeled… We also have 11 songs written for album 3 so are diving into producing and finishing recording those. As a side quest I am also playing guitar in Coatie Pop for select dates supporting Pixel Grip and Patriarchy, see you out there!

Order Damaged Dream by Heavy Halo HERE