Half Full of Empty
Axis Decade
May 2022
Axis Decade is a band, it’s a brand, it’s utopian collectivism, it’s rugged individualism, it’s multiple genetic aberrations, it’s advanced hearing loss, it’s New Wave, it’s old wounds, it’s a benediction, it’s a sunk cost fallacy, it’s too much, it’s barely anything at all, it’s 1967, it’s 1980, it’s 1992, it’s a broken shoelace when you’re running late. Drawing on ‘60s psychedelia, ‘70s pre- and post- punk, ‘80s new wave, and ‘90s shoegaze but ending up stranded somewhere else, Half Full of Empty is a song cycle at once elusive and excessive, intimate and expansive. Traditional pop songcraft gets hijacked by self-indulgent improvisation as personal and global Armageddons come to term. 'Axis Decade’s new album, “Half Full of Empty,” is a wonderful shoegaze trip. Led by Callen Diederichs, this Saskatoon band uses slow tempos, high levels of reverb-soaked dulcet-sounding guitars, and a breathy, forlorn male voice in a way Mark Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters used to be known for...I LOVE this organic, un-sanitized sound!' -Great Dark Wonder
