Hallo runs on youth in motion. The Belgian four-piece, SONS, steps on the downbeat and opens with a simple greeting, "Hello." What once barreled headlong now moves with balance, hips awake, lungs open. Sweet Boy carried a demolition thrill. Hallo treats impact as a design question and trusts the quiet half second before the snare lands. Velocity becomes a material force, shaping space, weight, and time as expressive tools. On November 26, 2025, SONS bring their high-octane garage rock to Control.
That sensibility links to who is behind the glass, producer David McCracken. His past work includes producing dEUS's Vantage Point, programming and keyboards on Depeche Mode's Playing the Angel, and collaborations with Ian Brown, Mr Hudson, A$AP Rocky, Swim Deep, and others. The deeper shift is methodological. You can hear the change in "Hello", a brisk opener that marries tight downstrokes to drums with a rubberized spring. You catch a faint echo of dEUS at its most aerodynamic, the suaveness of "The Architect," a feel that lets intelligence ride the groove. The performance carries a confident swing that feels organic, as if the band has discovered the room’s natural bounce.
From there, "Do My Thing" acts as the thesis in miniature. "Saturday night just before sunlight." The lyric stays legible and cocksure. Negative space appears where earlier SONS might have crammed. You can hear a taut swing that recalls Queens of the Stone Age during Era Vulgaris. The result lands in that narrow zone where rock still snarls and the body can dance without irony.
The unbridled youth theme is evident in how the songs behave. "Bakala" rolls on a low end but keeps its shoulders loose. "All Gold" rides a four-to-the-floor beat and still carries grit. "Somehow" is the plushest stretch here, a mid-tempo outline of melancholy where a lost friendship floats through the bright air of a chorus that refuses to brood. "I’ll never be your friend again." Bypassing tantrums, the youth arrive decisive.
Think of Larry Clark and Harmony Korine’s Kids from 1995. Washington Square Park at noon, a cracked sidewalk, a board rolling, a cheap stereo leaking treble. The camera tracks teenagers through apartments, bodegas, back-room raves, and a downtown night, mostly non‑actors moving with the confidence of locals. Long takes do the work of dialogue. The film keeps the lens close, allowing the bodies to create its mise-en-scène. Hallo chases that kind of immediate charge. It trusts ordinary detail. It lets proximity and pace carry meaning, while songcraft evolves in tandem.
The second half of Hallo feels closest to the skin. “Once And For All” clicks from tight verses into a chorus that loosens the tightest shoulders at the bar. “Big Mouth” makes mischief with stop‑start hits; the hook, “My head is back in line,” lands with a hint of shame. “Death Chair” strips to pulse and consonants. “The Dreamer” resists the sugar goodbye, letting out a final exhale.
Early SONS often began with the riff and attached words after. On Hallo, the first spark is a weighty phrase. Riffs answer the meaning instead of trying to generate it as the pressure gradient flips. Vocal lines now have somewhere to travel. The rhythm section has a reason to keep the ground in motion. The guitars cut their edges to fit the narrative. Across the record, you can chart the same discipline and the same willingness to leave small risks exposed so the songs can breathe.
Step back and the broader arc resolves. Family Dinner pressed its nose to the glass, while Sweet Boy tried to kick through it. With Hallo, the band no longer apologizes for wanting to fill larger spaces. They have written for new-room acoustics. The songs admit that groove is social technology. You can hear the SONS writing their way toward that truth. They do their thing now with stride and silhouette, clean air in the arrangement, a last unshouted line the crowd completes.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Subscribe for early birds, show announcements, news and more.
