Canadian folk-rockers Half Moon Run have released a gorgeous new single, “Grow Into Love”. This follows the release of the band’s third album A Blemish In The Great Light last year, which was met with praise from music media worldwide. “Grow Into Love” is already a fan favourite, and perfectly encompasses Half Moon Run’s effortlessly layered songwriting.

LISTEN TO “GROW INTO LOVE” HERE

“Grow Into Love” was recorded pre-quarantine. Lead singer Devon Portielje describes the process of including

“bits and pieces of various experiences in there. A good chunk of this tune came together while we were avoiding the punishingly hot Australian sun on New Year’s day, years ago, by bringing some instruments underneath a barren stage on a hilltop.

“Despite the soothing waltz feel, there is a sentiment of doubt, even suspicion, in this tune. ‘I do not know if I could just grow into love with you.’ Sometimes you can approach love this way. Hence the artwork seemed relevant – one of the first things a face mask says is ‘I don’t trust you.’ It’s self-protection. Identity-concealing.”

As a group whose art is deliberately left to do all the talking, their 2019 release “A Blemish In The Great Light” was a record that took strands from their previous work; all multi-layered instrumentation, intricate shapes and patterns, and a veritable cascading of melody, and merges it with something painted with more vivid colours, and with a rare playfulness, too. The album was produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The White Stripes, My Morning Jacket, The Strokes) and received praise from Evening Standard, Uncut, and Sunday Times. NME described their single “Then Again” as simply “mesmerizing.”

The band came together in 2009 in Montreal’s Mile End, when Conner Molander and Dylan Phillips—students and recent transplants from Vancouver Island—connected with Portielje, who was fresh out of Ottawa. (In mid 2012 they tapped a third Comox-born musician, Isaac Symonds, to intensify their live show.)  “If we had one real stroke of luck with this group, it was meeting each other,” says Molander. Now going on ten years together, the Montreal indie band is in deep, and the temptation to look forward is as risky as the lure of looking back.

Sophomore LP Sun Leads Me On, produced by Jim Abbiss (Adele, Arctic Monkeys), dropped in late 2015. Hailed as a departure from the moody melancholia of debut album Dark Eyes, AllMusic praised the album’s “more cosmopolitan approach,” while Mojo acknowledged that “the scenery is damned fine.” Lead single “Turn Your Love” was #1 on triple j in Australia.

After blowing out four back-to-back hometown shows and selling around 9,000 tickets in under 45 minutes, Half Moon Run was back to worldwide touring for another two years. They hit fourteen European festivals in fourteen weeks and sold out rooms in Canada, America, Australia, and Europe. Now, with their much-anticipated third LP dropping this year, everything has changed — but also not that much. Music continues to be the band’s first language with each other.

An electrifying and exciting live band, Half Moon Run have spent many years consistently touring the world.

“Grow Into Love” is available on all platforms now.