For Fans Of: Basement / Movements / Fiddlehead / Seahaven
Label: Run For Cover Records
Recommended Tracks: “I Can See You From Here” // “Matador” // “Highs and Lows”
“Why would I choose to be such a fool?” Frontman Mat Kerekes asks on the title track of Halcyon Blues.
It’s a question that could easily sit at the center of the album. Across 11 tracks, Citizen sits with the messier parts of being a person: holding on longer than we should, struggling to find the right words, and anticipating change without knowing exactly where it may lead.
The contradictions held within the record are simple, but capture the core of what makes Halcyon Blues feel deeply human. The band isn’t resolving feelings so much as sitting with them, allowing uncertainty and complexity to coexist on Citizen’s sixth studio album, out now on Run For Cover Records.
The 11 tracks fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Instead of attempting to recreate a previous sonic moment, the band allows pieces of previous records to show up unexpectedly. Punk-inspired moments intertwine with big, alt-rock choruses, leading gently into guitar-driven moments of quiet, successfully leaving space for the signature sounds the band has cultivated over the years. Somehow, it all fits.
The album opens with “Good Fortune,” establishing a restless energy and detached sense of self-reflection as Kerekes repeats, “You’re no good for me / And I’m no good for you.” That tension follows the album from beginning to end, where catchy hooks make the songs easy to hold onto, even as the lyrics refuse to let you feel entirely comfortable – much like the themes the band explores throughout the record.
Next, “I Can See You From Here” feels trance-like, opening with a subtle drone before expanding into wider sonic spaces. Kerekes circles questions of memory and distance, asking, “Does the ordinary remind you of me? / Does it all come flooding / When you least expect it?” The song feels almost weightless, floating from chord to chord as the narrator remains suspended in the uncertainty of wondering whether he still occupies someone else’s mind.
The title track takes that idea to a darker place, with Kerekes singing, “I wasn’t meant to love you,” before admitting that he chose to hold on anyway. The song captures the strange paralysis of knowing you’re being hurt and still choosing to stay, a tension that consistently gives Halcyon Blues its bite. It digs into the listener without mercy while wrapping its sharpest edges in melodies that feel soft, almost comforting. The result is music that makes being mangled sound strangely inviting.
The record calms in the middle with “Always the Last One to Leave” and “Either Way,” two songs that turn inward, lingering on what remains after the glow fades. The former unpacks a connection with a strange mix of affection and resignation, while the latter digs into the question that seems to sit beneath so much of the record: How many times can you choose the same thing before you realize it isn’t choosing you?
Enter “Matador.”
In one of the album’s most aggressive moments, the song opens with sonic chaos, built around a tense rhythm and a narrator who sounds increasingly annoyed with himself: “I can’t control myself / Matador / I’m losing it!” It’s blunt, repetitive, and effective, a moment where all of the uncertainty and restraint elsewhere on the record finally boils over.
Soon after, “Smooth Talker,” followed by “Highs and Lows,” pulls the record back toward the balance it keeps chasing. The former comes alive through its guitars and drums, while Kerekes turns the chorus into something that feels made for a room full of people shouting it back. After the bluntness of “Matador,” the song feels light, despite its tension.
The closer, “Anne,” mixes things up again before bringing the record to its most vulnerable point. It’s quieter, looking at someone who seems increasingly disconnected from the world around them. The lyrics don’t offer an easy answer, and that’s probably for the best. Halcyon Blues isn’t really interested in tidy resolutions. Instead, Citizen leaves things somewhere more familiar: the in-between.
After nearly two decades as a band, that’s perhaps the most impressive thing about Citizen: they still sound like a band willing to figure things out. They aren’t trying to prove they’ve outgrown their past, and they aren’t leaning on it for comfort, either. Pieces of previous records show up in unexpected places, mixed with new ideas that push the band somewhere slightly different. It doesn’t always feel perfectly resolved, and that’s what makes it feel alive. And so very human.
For a band that has spent its entire existence changing, Halcyon Blues doesn’t feel like a reset. It feels like another firm step in the right direction.
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