The River is Lincoln Halloran's first album as Hello Shark in a decade. Since the project's 20011 debut, the Kittery, Maine-based songwriter has favored sparse arrangements and contemplative, heartfelt lyricism. The River, the project's fourth and most fully realized record, marks the return of a beloved singer-songwriter and affirms why Hello Shark has continued to grow a devoted following even in absentia. In 2018, Halloran left Philadelphia, where he had been living for the past five years, and floated around the south, working odd service jobs. "I was pretty down and out, not writing or playing shows," he says. "I was a very functioning alcoholic, but then it became not too functioning." In 2022, he moved back to Maine, where his family now lives, and was hospitalized. As Halloran acclimated to sobriety, he began writing songs in earnest for the first time in many years. Halloran is hesitant to describe The River as an album about sobriety. "It's about looking back and grieving over living in a dark tunnel for so long," he says, "not fully available to people who are close to me." Though Hello Shark's music is rooted in reflection, Halloran now realizes that he had struggled to fully face the past, always changing names, fumbling details, relying on the distance of time and space. "Getting sober gave me the freedom to actually look," Halloran says. "Once I started doing that, I could write an honest-sounding song." The River opens with the title track, which Halloran calls "the first time I've written a song that's accurate to life at the moment, or in the present tense." The song describes a simple but steady life with a partner, a job at the old crooner bar, and a home down by the water. "I sold my truck/And I killed my plug/It's been two years, but I still miss her," Halloran softly croons, accompanied by harmonies from Florry's Francie Medosch. The image of solid roots planted perilously close to a rushing current speaks to Halloran's reality: in recovery while still slinging drinks at a local jazz bar. As he puts it, "I'm away from the moving chaos, but I stay close to it."Recorded with producer Garrett Linck, The River blends slowcore sprawl and introspective singer-songwriter tunes. Across these 10 tracks, Halloran's matter of fact lyricism captures moments of interpersonal minutiae, with stripped-down stories full of I's and you's. These songs touch on themes of longing and avoidance, with an emotional heft elevated by Halloran's conversational yet idiosyncratic voice. "In Hell" opens in media res, as he stumbles outside a bar and spots a now distant friend. "I loved watching you laughing/Outside, holding your friend crying," he wistfully croaks, "'Cause you're moving home/Are you still?" He finds profound reserves in the spaces between people, like on "The Moon," an elegiac ode that finds comfort in the glow of the TV screen. Ultimately, The River is a clear-eyed album that looks to the past as a means of moving forward and welcomes listeners with a tender embrace.