Halcyon Phase’s “Mean Streets” video blends powerful rock with a poignant message
Halcyon Phase has just released a music video for the epic progressive rock song Mean Streets. Mean Streets is the opening track on the band’s second full-length studio album Critical Misunderstandings On The Precipice. The Mean Streets video was created by Robin Youlton, who also crafted a music video for the album’s first single, the anthemic AI World.
Mean Streets was co-written by Frank Smith (words, music) and Phillip Victor Bova (music) and features Frank on lead vocal; Phil on bass, additional electric guitar, Wurlitzer, and Polymoog. Gord Finley plays drums, with John Fraser Findlay on lead and rhythm electric guitars and piano. Kellylee Evans, Shannon Ross, and Jeremy Abboud sing harmony and backing vocals. Mean Streets was selected from songs around the world by Prog Sphere to be part of their Progotronics 47 compilation on Bandcamp that was out in November.
“Mean Streets is a song about people struggling with persistent homelessness and society’s general indifference to their plight,” says Frank Smith. “I feel that there’s so much more attention and funding from our governments that need to be provided to those who deal with housing and food insecurity. Our social safety net is fragile at the best of times and we have an epidemic of homelessness at this moment in time, even in wealthy Western democracies. It’s a tragic situation.”
Critical Misunderstandings On The Precipice was produced and recorded at Bova Sound in Ottawa, Canada by Phillip Victor Bova. The album was released in the fall of 2024. Its 14 original songs address the state of the world, human relationships, actions, and inaction, at a particularly perilous moment in our history. These are love songs, break-up songs; treatises, and melodies that speak to social injustice/inequities, climate change, Artificial Intelligence (AI), struggles with mental illness and addiction. A thread lamenting the rapid passage of time and aging runs through it.
This collection of tunes also explores the role of the artist in society across mediums of artistic expression; the value and importance of pursuing art at all costs. Halcyon Phase leaders Frank Smith (words and music), Phillip Victor Bova (music) have crafted a compelling collection of powerful, melodic songs that are framed in genres including indie rock, progressive rock, and folk with distinct flavours of jazz. Session musicians and singers joined Phil and Frank in the studio to lend their diverse talents to complete Critical Misunderstandings On The Precipice. Since its release the album has been reviewed and covered extensively and enthusiastically in Exclaim!, The Spill Magazine, The Progressive Aspect, Canadian Beats, The Tinnitist, Billboard Canada, Prog Sphere, Sea of Tranquility, Logan Sounds Off and ADSR.
Critical Misunderstandings OnThe Precipice is on Bandcamp for streaming, as a digital download or on CD. The beautiful digipak compact disc version of the album and the cover image to be used online features an original oil painting by Alan Marsden and design by Grace Smith. The album is also available on numerous streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, iTunes, and Deezer. Canadian campus and community radio programs can play songs from the album through Earshot Distro.