Style
Half Life Half Death inevitably derived its musical style from its main influences, mostly New Wave and Postpunk British bands which became popular in the Philippines, especially in Metro Manila, during the members' highschool days, in the 1980s; bands that included The Cure, Depeche Mode, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Lotus Eaters, The Smiths, and The Wild Swans.
Many Filipino Alternative-music enthusiasts fondly remember Half Life Half Death for its quirky remake of "High School (Life)," a '70s Pop song written by the Filipino composer George Canseco for the Filipina actress/singer Sharon Cuneta. Half Life Half Death's version of the song was a concert favorite among the underground-music crowd of the late 1980s. It eventually achieved commercial popularity when the band recorded it for a compilation album released in 1995 by Vicor Records. The song enjoyed heavy airplay on various FM radio stations, further helping Half Life Half Death gain some more following and land a record deal with Viva Records.
Half Life Half Death attained commercial popularity among Filipino Alternative Rock enthusiasts when their independently recorded single "Alimango" became #1, in 1994, on the now-defunct FM radio station DWLA 105.9, which promoted unsigned Filipino Rock bands. This achievement paved the way to the band's inclusion in four compilation albums: "Kapit-Tukô" for A Dozen Alternatives (1994, Viva Records), "Sa Paskong Darating" for Christmas on the Rocks (1994, Viva Records), "High School (Life)" for Mga Himig Natin Volume 2 (1994, Vicor Records), and "Nosi Ba Lasi? (Lala's mix)" for the original soundtrack of the movie Okey si Ma'am (1995, Viva Records).
In 1995, Half Life Half Death finally recorded and released its debut album, Pymyth Prahn, under Viva Records. Despite the commercial quality and the lush concept of the album, the band failed to achieve commercial status and soon disbanded; with the members concentrating on each of their actual professions. The album spawned a few cult favorites that included "Butterflies," "Brother's Pen," and "We Are the Saints"; but "High School (Life)" remained their most popular song.
Half Life Half Death reformed and resumed activity in 2000 especially at Mayric's, a long-running club which served as a breeding ground for many important Filipino Rock bands which include Alamid, Sugar Hiccup, and The Youth. The band also began arranging new materials for a possible second album; but the plans were shelved when its vocalist went to Canada in 2003. However, before finally wrapping up a 15-year obscure career, Half Life Half Death released an independently produced double-CD compilation of all recorded materials plus a few demos, entitled The Halven Trilogy, the third part of which the band intends to finish and release on their vocalist's return to the Philippines.
Fans of the band regard Half Life Half Death as "The Cure of the Philippines," chiefly because of their strong and honest reference to their New Wave roots and certainly for the uncompromising Curesque style of their vocalist, whose sense of fashion virtually never changed from day one through the band's demise in 2003.
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
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“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one’s own, it is always twenty times better.”
—Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897)