Alternative rock band Citizen have released their latest album, 'Halcyon Blues', with frontman Mat Kerekes speaking to Rock Sound about how the record captures a period of significant personal change. Kerekes describes the songs as a "snapshot" of emotions felt one to two years before release, meaning he now feels distanced from the feelings that originally inspired them, even as the album reaches listeners for the first time.

Kerekes explains that the record was shaped by his long-running struggle to balance pride and compromise, describing a pattern of overcorrecting between being too stubborn and too accommodating in his personal life. He notes that after years of trying to write more nuanced lyrics, 'Halcyon Blues' marked a return to the direct, unfiltered emotional honesty that characterised Citizen's earliest material, a shift he says happened naturally rather than as a deliberate decision.