Time for a Turnaround: Singer/Songwriter Mike Hallal Drops Socially 'Timely' New Solo Album

Pre-order January 3 | Out Everywhere Friday, January 17, 2025

RUMFORD, ME, UNITED STATES, December 17, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Veteran New England singer/songwriter/guitarist Mike Hallal drops a socially 'timely' and all-original 14-song solo album Friday, January 17, 2025, titled Time for a Turnaround. Pre-ordering available on most sites two weeks prior. The 40-minute acoustic guitar-and-vocal album delivers a fresh, spicy stew of blues, rock, folk, country and reggae. It initially releases in both digital and hard CD format on Mike's own Pi Records label, distributed globally by CD Baby. It's his 11th full-length release, and his first solo album in nearly 30 years. One acoustic guitar. One baritone vocal. Spare, intimate sonics. Tight, no frills tunes with provocative lyrics touching on globalism, terrorism, child abuse, poverty, love good and bad – and the inalienable right to breathe and dance.

HOW IT HAPPENED

In the summer of 2024 Mike planned to do solo guitar-and-vocal recordings for some 40 new songs, mainly to file for USA copyrights. The stack had built up over the past few years. “Along the way I heard a couple of live takes I wanted to share,” he says. “Soon I was hearing an album full of songs I hope others will enjoy, body and soul. Even one person somehow encouraged to ‘carry on’ by a tune right now – on the brink of World War 3 perhaps – is worth the effort.” Mastering engineer Mike Wyatt of London, England, put the finishing touches on the tracks. And a rather private, punky graphics and video artist in New Delhi, India, did the album jacket and disc layout.

MUSIC & LYRICS

The title track – a two-minute jazzy bluesrocker – lyrically takes on the world. It names by acronym the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the United States as complicit in the plight of “Billions of people / Desperate and lonely.” Other tunes like folkrockers 'EE Stomp' (track 4) and 'Mollyocket Song' (track 5) train the ear on the “poor and needy” around the world. At the heart of the album are bluesy, personal tales of a “Beautiful mistreater” ('In Spades' track 7), a “Venus undone” ('Oh My Girl' track 8) and love that lasts till your “old and grey” ('You Rolled Me' track 9). An allegorical ballad about Mike's backyard 'Bluejays' is the penultimate track, and the album closes with an upbeat and defiant reggae rocker 'Free to Dance'. For more on Time for a Turnaround, visit mikehallal.com.

K Jones
Pi Records
kjonespr@usa.com