release date: Sep. 28, 1990
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,52]
producer: Steve Kilbey
label: self-release - nationality: USA / Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Monarch" - 3. "March" - 4. "Centaur" - 5. "Antelope" - 6. "Hollywood in Winter"
2nd and final full-length studio album by the duo Hex consisting of Donette Thayer and Steve Kilbey, also a privately formed couple. The title has only been released on CD and cassette via Rykodisc in the US and as a digital self-release in Australia. As a curiosity, the album came out at the same time when Kilbey and his (other) girlfriend, Karin Jansson, released their debut album Charms & Blues (also Sep. '90) under the name of Curious (Yellow). Vast Halos is the direct continuation of the '89 debut with more delay and bolder use of echo effects to create a stronger musical spaciousness. All tracks here are credited Thayer / Kilbey and again it's Thayer's vocals alone performing on the songs, which have been further arranged with keyboards, synthetic strings, and the vocals on this function more as musical instrumentation a bit á la Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins. Jangle-pop elements have crept in (Kilbey), but otherwise the album (again) most of all points to earlier dream pop releases of the mid-eighties.
The album garnered even better reviews than the debut, but without promotion it only sold a few copies and Hex only released one single from the album, the track "March".
During this period, Kilbey found himself at a low point with The Church, who, after bad studio experiences, had released Gold Afternoon Fix (Feb. '90) to lukewarm reviews, but Kilbey subsequently released his fourth solo album, Remindlessness (Jul. '90) and in the Summer of '90, he embarked on a new duo-project, now with Grant McLennan from the recently defunct Go-Betweens, and together the two released the debut album Jack Frost by the end of the year.
Vast Halos is quite a nicely arranged album if you are into dream pop in the darker and more moody end of the scale, where Hex leans on the same qualities as Mazzy Star with their debut She Hangs Brightly from May this year, and without being excellent, it is clearly the duo's best and most interesting outing.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
