Peter Hall continues to bewitch

By Henry Lipput

It’s been four years since Peter Hall’s initial solo outing, the There’s Something Wrong With Everyone EP, where we first became aware of his extraordinary gift for melody. Hall doesn’t rock, he swoons; and we swoon with him.

His ability to write and record songs that touch both the head and the heart has continued through EPs and albums. Hall’s latest, his What Are You Waiting For? EP (Bandcamp), continues this more than ever as Hall has become a singer-songwriter to reckon with especially if you, like me, appreciate the kind of melodic pop that reverberated throughout the 1960s.

The new four-song EP contains the brilliant “I’m In Love With You” which first saw the light of day on February’s Daisyland Acoustics EP which also included striped-down versions of three songs from previous releases (all of which deserve your attention and all of which can be found on Hall’s Bandcamp page).

Hall’s lyrics are all about love: looking for love, finding love, and losing love. “Two Twenty Two” from 2021’s glorious Light The Stars is a song about found love and all but name checks The Beatles' first single. “Waiting For Nothing” from last year’s wonderful About Last Night is, on the other hand, a look at love slowly coming to an end. His music as well as his choir boy voice, as expected, match his words and can be both joyous and heartbreaking.