Halo Tora - Omni\One: Exclusive Album Stream

Glaswegian five-piece stream their debut album, Omni\One, exclusively with The Independent.

From left to right: Ryan Connery (Keyboards), Chris McKeown (Drums), Ian McCall (Guitars/Vocals), Chris Alexander (Guitars/Vocals) and Mark Young (Bass) (Neil Jarvie)

Scotland is already a fertile breeding ground for inspiring alternative rock bands … when you hail from the home ground of bands as vital and diverse as Biffy Clyro, Mogwai and The Jesus and Mary Chain, you'd better have something special if you want to stand atop the shoulders of such giants.

One band currently emerging from Scotland looking to scale such heights is Halo Tora, a five-piece founded in 2011, whose particular brand of rock is a gentle hybrid of soaring, cinematic post, alt and prog. The band's two vocalists, Ian McCall and Chris Alexander, provide subtle harmonies throughout over a cascading wave of epic interweaving piano melodies and distorted guitar chords. They also have an ear for an incredibly monumental catchy chorus or two (for proof, see The Bones that Rock the Cradle and Tonight).

Speaking about Omni/One, Halo Tora say "We are delighted to finally have the record available for everyone to hear. We have pretty much put every waking minute into it over the last year and we've worked incredibly hard to get it sounding exactly how we imagined. We've thrown a lot of our own personalities in to this record and we are extremely proud of the end result." The band have released a video for the song Permanent Revolution, which "is particularly fun to play live. It feels as though it's taking off - especially at the chorus."

Having recently supported the likes of Jamie Lenman, My Vitriol and Mark Tremonti, the band are soon to be embarking on their own headlining 9-date UK tour, with their hometown Glasgow show already sold out.

Thurs 3 September Inverness Mad Hatters

Fri 4 September Glasgow Audio (Sold Out)

Sat 5 September Edinburgh Electric Circus

Sat 12 September Manchester The King’s Arms

Sun 13 September Liverpool Studio 2 Parr Street

Thurs 17 September London Aces and Eights Saloon Bar

Fri 18 September Plymouth The Junction

Sat 19 September Penzance The Studio Bar

Sun 20 September Chester Compass

Omni/One, the debut album from Halo Tora, is released on Friday 4 September and is available to pre-order now. Their tour of the UK starts in Inverness on 3rd September.