Patience is apparently a virtue for Fraternal Twin’s Tom Christie. It’s there in the songs themselves, which tend to unfold gradually before erupting into fits of distortion. And it’s certainly evident in the making of Halo Fell Forever (Fraternal Twin/Many Hats), Fraternal Twin’s first album since 2016’s Homeworlding. Roughly half of the new songs date to about a decade ago. What followed was a period of significant change for Christie, who moved from Kingston, N.Y., to New York City in late 2023 and reconfigured Fraternal Twin’s lineup, which now includes drummer Marco Spodek, guitarist Mariah Houston and bassist Forrest Philpot.
Produced by Dan Howard, Halo Fell Forever’s disquieting, slowcore-inflected indie rock attaches itself to some of what Christie experienced during those dicey years—primarily depression, anxiety and rumination. “It shattered the way I saw the world for a while,” he says. “I don’t plan on disappearing again anytime soon. Expect a lot more music from this band in the coming years.”
Here’s more from Christie.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Solitude”
“This was a bit of a departure for me, mainly in the way I approached riff writing and arranging. It’s very much written for two guitars. I started writing it on my close friend and old bandmate Adan Carlo’s Fender VI one night. I think we were practicing some songs together, and he let me mess around on it afterward. I later reinterpreted it on my Jaguar in a completely different tuning. The main riff sounds psychedelic to me, and the song itself feels like a dream sequence that came from spending too much time alone in my room at night overthinking—which, thankfully, I don’t experience anymore. The lyrics are also probably my most abstract and stream-of-consciousness, and I never really knew what they were about until now. I think they have something to do with learning to accept uncomfortable emotions like anxiety and dread—something I learned in therapy.”
2) “Whirlpool”
“I actually wrote ‘Whirlpool’ back in 2015. We tried to record it for Homeworlding, but it just didn’t work. Something about it wasn’t ready yet, and I didn’t think it would be this long before I finally got to share it. It’s a little slower than back then—and a lot louder. The outro sounds really mean to me when we play it live. It originally used to have lyrics, but it feels better to me without them. I’m noticing that I’ve been utilizing more instrumental passages in my songs these days—and I like that.”
3) “Half Grown”
“I also wrote this one in 2015, a few months after I wrote ‘Whirlpool.’ I kind of remember starting the lyrics in my car that summer, driving on I-87 listening to Arthur Russell’s Love Is Overtaking Me over and over. I think they have something to do with that sense of wisdom in accepting you won’t have it all figured out when you’re 24.”
4) “Medicine”
“‘Medicine’ is a very special song to me and my favorite on the record. It’s about me wanting to reconnect with the person I remembered being over a decade ago and lost somewhere along the way during a years-long bout with depression. I’m happy to say I’ve found him again: ‘I’ll know it when I see him/My spirit guide from the photographs.’ I’m forever thankful for this song. I’ll also say that after three or so years of being medicated, I’ve been weaning off antidepressants. Finding community in New York City after the isolation of the pandemic and putting music at the forefront of my life again has done wonders for my mental health. I’m happier than ever despite everything. I also want to thank my close friend and old bandmate Adan for writing the guitar harmony arpeggio at the end. It’s perfect.”
5) “Evil Eye”
“This was the first song I wrote after moving to NYC in 2023. Each time we play it, it gets progressively heavier and more evil sounding—but it’s actually a love song. My good friend Brett Bivona, who also played in the band for a moment, wrote the lead part in the verses that I love. It’s so spidery and sinister but so clean. It complements the rest of the song so well.”
6) “Lucidity”
“‘Lucidity’ is about putting another’s needs, opinions and perspective above your own and, unfortunately, not trusting your gut—you kind of lose yourself if you’re not careful. This one is a lot of fun to play live because we incorporate more tempo changes. Our drummer and I don’t even have to look at each other anymore to nail them, which feels really good.”
7) “Metamorphosis”
“I finished writing this when I was living in Philadelphia in 2017, but the main riff came to me when I was in Jersey City a year earlier. The lyrics are about watching a friend exhibit questionable patternistic behavior and not being able to convince them of this—and ultimately deciding to leave the friendship behind. In the studio while recording, I couldn’t recreate the intensity and magic of all the noisy guitars at the end, so we used my demo takes. The energy is definitely there.”
8) “Halo Fell Forever”
“The title track is based on a phrase I heard very distinctly when I played back a bunch of vocal gibberish while recording the demo for this. It almost feels like I didn’t write it—but it’s one of my favorite lyrics. I’m glad that’s what I decided to put down. It takes me back to this sort of ‘fall from innocence’ I experienced years ago. I think it means something about learning from your mistakes and not worrying so much about trying to be perfect. I’m really hard on myself even though I know it’s OK to fuck up sometimes. My bandmates unanimously agreed we should name the record after this song. At first, I was afraid to because it’s so personal. But they were totally right.”
9) “Tip Of Everything
“I wrote ‘Tip Of Everything’ in my parents’ basement in upstate New York in 2015 on my Tascam around the time I wrote ‘Half Grown.’ It’s a great way to sum up the last 10 years for me: ‘Took a minor break from my place in time/But it never left my sight/I took it with me and walked/Nothing will ever truly go the way I thought.’”
See Fraternal Twin live.
