The Hails - Duckpond
For The Hails, making music has always been about more than individual parts coming together. It’s about the chemistry that happens when four musicians share a room, follow an idea wherever it leads, and discover something none of them could have created alone. On their second full-length album, Duckpond, the Miami-bred indie rockers reclaim that collaborative spirit, delivering a record that balances infectious melodies and danceable rhythms with a restless dissatisfaction toward modern life. Produced by Brandon Shoop (Role Model, Dijon, Junior Varsity), the fourteen-track collection finds the band sounding creatively liberated, embracing the spontaneity that first helped establish their place in the indie scene while confronting the personal and societal frustrations that come with trying to find your footing in an increasingly exhausting world.
Following the release of their 2023 debut, What’s Your Motive, The Hails faced the challenge familiar to countless independent bands: maintaining creative momentum while navigating geographical distance, financial pressures, and the increasingly precarious business of making music. After spending years exchanging demos and building songs remotely, Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue, and Zach Levy reunited in South Florida for an extended writing and recording session. The resulting change in approach is central to Duckpond, restoring the camaraderie and unfiltered experimentation that helped birth fan favourites like “Younger” and “Stay.”
That renewed chemistry is evident in the album’s musical identity. Drawing from indie rock, alternative pop, and the bright, unpretentious energy of British guitar bands, The Hails construct a sound that feels equally suited to a packed dance floor and a late-night drive. There’s a looseness to the arrangements, an appreciation for melody, and a willingness to let songs take unexpected turns rather than force them into predictable structures. Even as the record explores disillusionment, its musicianship retains a sense of playfulness that keeps the material from becoming weighed down by its heavier themes.
“Corruptor” is among the clearest examples of the band’s strengths. Built around the trials and tribulations of a long-term relationship, the track channels the punchy, carefree spirit of ’90s Britpop and early-2000s UK indie rock, pairing energetic instrumentation with a danceable groove. Kingsley’s lyrics emerged from a disagreement with his then-girlfriend, now-fiancée, during the band’s extended recording trip, turning a moment of personal tension into an acknowledgment of neglect and the importance of making time for the people who matter. A three-part vocal harmony in the bridge, inspired by the passing of Brian Wilson, adds a touch of classic pop grandeur to the song’s otherwise restless energy. It’s an effective reminder that The Hails can transform everyday experiences into something immediate, relatable, and irresistibly catchy.
Elsewhere, Duckpond finds the band examining the contradictions that define modern relationships and personal identity. “Fool” considers the ways people deceive themselves about uncomfortable truths in their romantic lives, while “Story of You and Me” approaches relationships through the language of film genres, exploring how people inhabit assigned roles and respond when life refuses to follow the script. These tracks reflect the album’s broader interest in the stories people tell themselves, whether to preserve a relationship, maintain a sense of control, or avoid confronting the realities of their circumstances.
The record’s dissatisfaction extends beyond romance. In an era defined by rising living costs, unfulfilling work, and the relentless noise of social media, the pursuit of a sustainable creative life can feel increasingly absurd. The band’s accompanying music videos reinforce that tension by casting them as 1930s bowling alley pinsetters, workers whose once-essential jobs have been rendered obsolete by automation. The imagery offers an apt metaphor for independent musicians trying to carve out a future in an industry that can seem indifferent to their survival. Rather than romanticize the struggle, Duckpond acknowledges the exhaustion of trying to make something meaningful within systems that rarely make the process easy.
That critique comes into sharper focus on the title track, “Ducks on the Pond,” where Kingsley takes aim at the normalization of online gambling and the pursuit of instant gratification. Its sarcastic commentary on submission and destructive habits captures a generation increasingly encouraged to trade long-term fulfillment for fleeting distractions. The subject fits naturally within the album’s larger concerns, connecting personal dissatisfaction to a culture that continually offers temporary escapes while doing little to address the underlying problems.
Still, Duckpond is not simply a collection of grievances. The Hails understand that frustration can coexist with joy, and the album’s musical vitality gives its more pointed observations room to breathe. The renewed emphasis on playing together lends the record an organic quality, allowing its melodic instincts and instrumental interplay to take precedence over excessive polish. That sense of collective purpose is especially significant for a band whose early momentum was disrupted by the pandemic, forcing its members to work apart just as their audience was beginning to expand.
The Hails first broke beyond their Florida roots with “Younger,” which landed on Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlist in 2018, and continued building their following through extensive touring, festival appearances, and the success of “Stay.” Their debut album documented a band finding its way through a difficult period, but Duckpond feels more assured in its identity. Rather than positioning the group as a collection of individual songwriters working toward a common goal, the record emphasizes what happens when those individual perspectives collide, overlap, and evolve together.
Across its fourteen tracks, Duckpond captures the tension between wanting more from life and struggling to imagine what that might look like. Its songs move between romantic self-examination, cultural criticism, and the everyday absurdities of trying to remain creatively fulfilled, all held together by an approachable indie rock sound that favours personality over pretension. Not every frustration requires a grand resolution, and The Hails are at their best when they allow those contradictions to exist without sacrificing the immediacy of a good melody.
Ultimately, Duckpond represents a meaningful step forward for The Hails, not because the band has escaped the pressures surrounding its existence, but because it has rediscovered the collaborative process that makes those pressures worth enduring. By returning to the simple act of making music together, the quartet has created a record that feels both more vulnerable and more unified than its predecessor. In a world increasingly designed to leave people dissatisfied, Duckpond finds something quietly defiant in the act of creating on your own terms — and finding the right people to create alongside you.
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